A Sydney father-of-three and mechanical engineer detained in an Iraqi prison for nearly four years has been released on bail in a major breakthrough.
Robert Pether has been locked up in a heavily-guarded facility on the outskirts of Baghdad for the better part of half a decade after being arrested while helping the war-ravaged country rebuild on April 7, 2021.
Pether had travelled to Baghdad to discuss a multimillion-dollar blowout in the cost of building the new headquarters for the government-owned Central Bank of Iraq.
He was charged with deception and was sentenced to five years behind bars and a $16million fine. Pether has always maintained his innocence.
The engineer claimed he was unlawfully held captive as part of a sinister plot to extort millions of dollars from his boss’s construction company.
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong welcomed his release on Friday.
‘His case has been raised with Iraqi authorities over 200 times, including at the highest level by the Prime Minister and myself,’ Senator Wong said.
‘I want to thank Australian officials for their tireless work on Mr Pether’s case, including Australia’s special envoy who travelled to Iraq in recent weeks to negotiate for this outcome.’
A Sydney father-of-three and engineer (pictured) detained in an Iraqi prison for nearly four years has been released on bail in major breakthrough
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said the Australian government would continue to press Robert Pether’s case in Iraq (Mr Pether is pictured with his wife Desree on his wedding day)
The update comes after Mr Pether, who lost a third of his bodyweight in prison, begged for help in a letter shared with Daily Mail Australia in February.
Mr Pether said he was terrified he would die in prison and never see his wife, Desree, or children, Flynn, 20, Oscar, 18, and Nala, 11, again.
‘For almost four years I’ve been unlawfully imprisoned in Iraq, subjected to horrendous human rights abuses and violations of international law,’ he wrote.
‘I don’t want my wife to be a widow. I don’t want my children to have no father.
‘But I also don’t want them to suffer any more and I won’t let Iraq kill me slowly while I, an innocent man who only came to help Iraq rebuild, rot away, getting sicker and sicker in an Iraq prison.
‘I long to go back to Australia. To dive and sail again. Two of my passions. I want my children to experience that with me now that they’re older.’
In the letter, Mr Pether said he had been subjected to ‘what equates to sanctioned torture since my imprisonment in the name of medical care’.
He described being ‘extremely unwell, mentally and physically’, with a life-threatening skin condition as a melanoma survivor with a very high chance of more occurring.
Mr Pether (pictured, centre) has previously said he has endured horrendous human rights abuses while imprisoned in Iraq
In a trial that lasted just 15 minutes in 2021, Mr Pether (pictured) and an Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were found guilty of deception
A United Nations report on arbitrary detention detailed allegations Mr Pether was subject to extreme cold, humiliation, threats of death and forms of psychological abuse, including being shown a torture room.
Wong said officials would continue to press the case for the Australian in Iraq.
‘We will continue to support Mr Pether and his family and to advocate for Mr Pether’s interests and wellbeing,’ she said.
In a trial that lasted just 15 minutes in 2021, Mr Pether and an Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were found guilty of deception.
They were both given five years ‘hard imprisonment’.
The pair were arrested after being lured to an office with the promise of resolving their outstanding claim of not being paid for work they had done on the $1billion Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) offices in Baghdad.
‘Disappeared for days. We didn’t know if they were alive or dead,’ Mr Pether’s wife Desree said in April 2024.
‘We’re all broken, they’re broken.’
‘Watching the impact on them you can see it in their eyes. The boys have grown into men while he was away. It’s so excruciating. They were so proud of him, what he was doing and then this happened.’
