Bring Ryan home.

I am a Canadian citizen. I am 47 years old. I am writing this through my wife, Virginia, because I have been detained in Dubai since November 2025 and cannot speak for myself in the way I would like to.

I want to tell you, plainly, what has happened.

I spent the better part of my career working in banking and finance in places most professionals will not go. I went because the work was needed there. In 2022, I was appointed Chief Executive of Kush Bank in Juba, South Sudan. The board asked me to do a specific job: to strengthen the institution, to improve its governance, and to make its operations more transparent. I did that work. During my tenure, the bank’s client base grew by 68 per cent and its revenues and profits increased.

The work also brought me into direct conflict with people who had benefited from the institution being opaque. I received threats. I left the country in 2023. I moved to Dubai with my family because I believed Dubai was a place where the rule of law would protect me.

In November 2025, I was arrested in Dubai on an extradition request from the Government of South Sudan. I have been in detention ever since.

These are the facts of my case as they stand today:

The UAE has approved my extradition to face trial in South Sudan. I have not been charged with a crime in Canada. I have not been charged with a crime in the United Arab Emirates. No evidence has been presented against me in the Dubai court proceedings. I have not been permitted to appear in court to defend myself. The court rulings against me do not disclose the specific accusations being made by South Sudan, beyond a general charge of “breach of trust.” Interpol investigated the South Sudanese referral against me for 19 months and found nothing that warranted action.

If I am extradited to South Sudan, I will not receive a fair trial. I will be placed in a detention system that international observers have repeatedly described as among the worst in the world. A former Canadian Ambassador to South Sudan, Nicholas Coghlan, has publicly described my situation as a “major miscarriage of justice.” I believe, and those who know the country well believe, that my life will be in danger.

I have come to terms with the gravity of that reality. What I have not come to terms with is the idea that this can happen quietly to a Canadian citizen, without his country knowing.

I am grateful to the Canadian government for the consular assistance that has been provided to me and to my family. I am grateful that Canada is formally opposing my extradition. I am asking, respectfully and urgently, for that opposition to be made stronger, more public, and more visible at the highest levels of government.

I am also asking the Canadian public to know my name. I am asking you to read the reporting that has been done on my case by The Globe and Mail. I am asking you, if you believe that a Canadian citizen deserves due process, to say so out loud.

I have a wife who has waited for me for six months. I have a 16-year-old daughter who has not seen her father in that time. I have a life I would like to come back to.

I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for the protection that any Canadian is entitled to expect from the country to which they belong.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you to everyone who has already helped. To anyone who can help further: please do.