An Australian man who has spent almost four years in an Iraqi prison cell was rearrested on the eve of his expected release and is facing new “confected and ludicrous” accusations, his lawyer tells Crikey.
Engineer Robert Pether and a colleague of his were arrested in Baghdad on April 7, 2021, by 12 police officers who stormed a meeting the men were having with the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, following a contractual dispute between the men’s employer and the bank.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in November of that year that Pether and his colleague, Egyptian engineer Khalid Radwan, were arbitrarily detained and that their right to a fair trial and due process had been violated.
According to the UN, it is alleged the pair were detained as a way to “exercise leverage over their employer”, United Arab Emirates-based CME Consulting, which had been hired to construct new headquarters for the central bank before the project broke down and a dispute over payments arose.
On January 8 of this year, Pether had expected to be released but was instead kept in detention, UK-based human rights lawyer Peter Griffin told Crikey. On Wednesday, January 15, Pether was told he would face new accusations of money laundering.
“Rob was supposed to be released, but the Iraqis had another idea,” Griffin said.
He said the money laundering charge appeared to be linked to Pether’s acceptance of a salary from CME Consulting.
“In the minds of the Iraqis, Rob is guilty of money laundering because he has taken salary from a company that they say — and we disagree — has defrauded the Iraqi state,” he said.
“Even if something illegal had happened, which we dispute, Rob has already served a prison sentence for the past four years … Keeping him in jail is just ridiculous, confected and ludicrous.”
Griffin said he was very disappointed in the Australian government’s handling of the situation.
“I am staggered. I am bewildered. I cannot understand why and how Australia has left one of its own citizens like Rob languishing in a foreign jail in a situation like this, which is so manifestly outrageous and unjust,” he said.
“The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs has been ridiculous, has been hapless and ineffectual for the last four years. They are shameful in their pathetic response to this crisis. They have repeatedly appeared like deer in the headlights. They have repeatedly disappointed me as a non-Australian, because I expected that Australia would have had so much better to offer, than an at-times lazy, at-times confused reaction.
“[The government] has seemed almost anti-Robert Pether in the sense that they were willing to believe the narrative that had been propounded by the Iraqis instead of the narrative that has been stated conclusively by the United Nations Working Group for Arbitrary Detention.”
A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said they wanted to “acknowledge the personal toll Mr Pether’s detention continues to take on him and his family”.
“The Australian government has consistently advocated for Mr Pether, including for a pardon and early release on humanitarian grounds,” the spokesperson told Crikey.
“It is deeply concerning that Mr Pether, and his colleague Mr Radhwan, remain detained, having served the custodial sentence imposed on them by the Iraqi courts. We call on Iraqi authorities to release Mr Pether and Mr Radhwan immediately.”
Since Pether’s arrest, the Australian government has made more than 190 representations to Iraqi authorities, most recently by Wong herself in a phone call with Iraq’s foreign minister on December 13, 2024.
Pether’s wife Desree has been consistently advocating for his release, and has previously told Crikey about the anguish his children have felt about his detention.
“Robert is a highly specialised engineer, and could have taken any project, but he wanted to make a difference and leave a legacy. He had the assurance of the Central Bank of Iraq that he was safe and had as much security as at any embassy when working on the project,” she told Crikey this week.
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