An Australian engineer jailed in Baghdad has been issued with legal papers in his cell claiming he owes the Iraqi government US$50 million, the man’s wife says.
Robert Pether has been detained in Iraq since April last year and his mental and physical health are deteriorating fast behind bars, according to his wife, Desree Pether.
She told Crikey she spoke to her husband twice in the past three days and was told he may be in for another legal battle in an Iraqi court.
According to Desree, whose claims are yet to be verified by the Iraqi embassy or DFAT, her husband was served with papers written in Arabic this week, which he was asked to sign and mark with his thumbprint.
Though Pether doesn’t understand Arabic well enough to read the documents himself, he was told by a cellmate the papers made a claim he owed US$50 million.
The cellmate, Pether’s colleague Khalid Radwan, an Egyptian national, was asked to sign the papers as well.
“They were given it for like two minutes and told ‘sign here’, that’s it,” Desree said.
“They weren’t allowed to keep a copy of it or anything like that.”
It appeared the new money claim would be on top of a US$12 million “special payment” previously demanded by the Central Bank of Iraq.
Pethers and Radwan were jailed following a dispute over work the men were doing on behalf of their Dubai-based employer CME Consulting.
The work involved building new headquarters for the bank, but years of pandemic and security-related delays led to a dispute between the bank and CME, which ended up with the two employees being jailed.
Desree said her husband was represented by a legal team in Iraq, but that they too had struggled to get their hands on the new documents.
In the past the lawyers have had to wait weeks to get copies of documents in the case, she said.
Desree, who lives in Ireland with three of the couple’s four children, said her 20-minute phone call with her husband on Tuesday, Irish time, left her fearing for his life.
Pether has previously survived skin cancer, and a new crop of fast-growing moles on his body has led his wife to fear the disease has come back.
“He’s never going to get out, that’s how he sees it. This is a life sentence,” she said.
“He doesn’t see a way out. My kids are aware they might be spending another Christmas without their dad, and the two older boys know the mental state he’s in at the moment. They’re scared their father is going to die and they’re never going to see him again.”
She said she briefly spoke to her husband again early Thursday morning, Australian time.
“He’s extremely flat, it’s scary hearing him like that,” she said.
The Iraqi embassy in Canberra told Crikey it didn’t have any information about the case.
A spokesman for Iraq’s justice ministry recently told the news outlet The National, a media company affiliated with the government of the United Arab Emirates, that reports of Pether’s deteriorating health were “baseless”.
“None of that is true,” the spokesman said in September. “He’s in good condition and receives the adequate medical care that he needs”.
A report by a United Nations body focused on arbitrary detention published earlier this year deemed the arrest of Pether and Radwan was an “enforced disappearance” and may have involved torture.
A spokesperson for Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong told Guardian Australia earlier this week the government expressed “serious concerns” for Pether’s welfare.
“The Australian government continues to advocate for Mr Pether in the strongest possible terms and at the highest levels,” a spokesperson for the minister said.
“The Australian government holds serious concerns for the welfare of Mr Robert Pether, and is working with Iraqi authorities to ensure Mr Pether can access appropriate medical care. DFAT continues to provide consular assistance to Mr Pether and his family, including visiting him in prison and facilitating additional calls with his family.”
Crikey has contacted Wong for further comment.
