Advisers to Australian Robert Pether have expressed concern about the timing of a statement from the foreign minister announcing his depature from Iraq, saying it was issued at a sensitive period while the engineer was still transiting through Turkey.
Penny Wong’s office issued a statement on Monday announcing that Pether had been allowed to leave Iraq after five years trapped in the country, including a four-year stint in jail that his family feared would kill him.
The news was welcomed by his family, who said they have been “living in hell” since Pether was arrested without charge in April 2021 in connection to a business dispute between his firm – which was building a new headquarters for the central bank – and the Iraqi government.
Pether was released from jail last year due to his deteriorating health, but was banned from leaving the country until last week, when an Iraqi court dismissed proceedings against him and lifted the travel ban, citing a lack of evidence.
He was allowed to board a flight on Monday to Ireland, via Turkey, after painstaking negotiations involving officials in Ireland, Australia, Egypt and Iraq – and Pether’s international pro-bono team at Slaney Advisors, a consultancy specialising in international arbitration.
The managing director, Peter Griffin, said he was shocked by the timing of Wong’s statement.
He said it was issued while Pether was transiting through Turkey and still at risk, particularly if there was premature and negative media reporting concerning the Iraqi government’s handling of the case.
“We were aware for some time that minister Wong was keen to be the first to break this fantastic news,” Griffin said. “But Robert’s safety was paramount.”
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Wong’s office declined to respond to the criticism. Earlier, the foreign minister said: “The Australian government welcomes the Iraqi government’s decision to allow Mr Robert Pether to leave Iraq today.”
“I spoke to Mr Pether shortly before his departure from Baghdad and am pleased he is now free to move forward with his life and be reunited with his family.
“Today’s outcome follows many years of persistent advocacy by the Australian government, including at the highest levels of government, and sustained consular assistance to Mr Pether and his family.”
Pether’s wife, Desree, said she was “hugely relieved”.
“It’s been an absolute nightmare, especially these last few months,” she said. “So many obstacles and plot twists right up to the last minute.”
Pether and his Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were detained in Baghdad in 2021 after flying in for a meeting with bank officials to resolve a dispute they were having with his engineering firm, CME Consulting.
Pether was later sentenced and fined over allegations that his firm spent money that should have gone to an architect and a subcontractor.
In a report in March 2022, the UN working group on arbitrary detention found Pether had been arbitrarily detained in breach of international law.
The UN body also found the arrest constituted an “enforced disappearance” and may have involved forms of torture. The working group said it had received complaints that Pether “was exposed to extreme cold, threats of death, humiliation and various forms of psychological abuse”.
“Mr Pether was detained in a [2x2 metre] cell with the lights permanently on,” the working group said in its report. “He was reportedly blindfolded, interrogated, screamed at, threatened, insulted and shown torture rooms.”
Pether’s family described the arrest and ongoing detention as a living nightmare. His health dramatically deteriorated.
In 2022, the Guardian obtained an emotional letter from Pether to his family, penned from behind bars. The letter warned his prognosis was “bleak” and he was facing a potential “death sentence”.
Pether wrote about potentially telling his family he might not come home.
“How do you tell a little girl who loves unicorns and cats that her daddy will not be coming home? How do you tell your children that you are proud of them but will not be sharing the accolades (and pitfalls) of their lives with them?” Pether wrote.
“And toughest of all, how do you tell your wife, who is very much the other half of you, that you will not be keeping the promise you made to grow old together?”
Desree had previously been critical of the efforts of Australian officials to secure Pether’s release. The Australian government said it had raised the case with Iraqi authorities more than 200 times.
Following her husband’s release from jail in 2025, Desree said from Ireland she was “grateful to everyone who contributed to this happening”.
The UN working group posed serious questions about the conduct of Pether’s trial.
The 2022 report aired allegations that Pether’s evidence was mistranslated to indicate guilt and said that even during the trial “Pether and Radwan did not have clarity around their charges”. Charges were dropped during the hearing and replaced with others.
“In the light of the above, the working group concludes that the violations of the right to a fair trial and due process are of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty of Messrs Pether and Radwan is arbitrary,” the report stated.
