Robert Pether: Family plead for justice on fourth anniversary of Dubai resident’s detention in Iraq

The wife of a Dubai resident serving a prison sentence in Iraq over a contract dispute since 2021 said she does not know if she will ever see her husband again.

Robert Pether, from Australia, along with his Egyptian co-worker Khaled Radwan, who both resided in Dubai at the time, were jailed in August 2021 and fined $12 million after a contract dispute between his employer and authorities in Iraq.

Mr Pether's wife spoke to The National on Monday, the fourth anniversary of his arrest. The decision to subsequently jail both Mr Pether and Mr Radwan has been described as “arbitrary and in contravention of international law” by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

The families of both men were expecting them to be released in January, having served their sentences, however it emerged that Mr Pether was facing a new charge of money laundering, which could lead to a further 15 years in prison.

“I honestly don't know if we'll ever see him again,” said Mr Pether's wife Desree. “I don't believe he'll survive if he's sentenced to another 15 years. Robert is at absolute rock bottom, he's already told he won't survive [if sentenced again].”

The stress of the situation has also taken a toll on the rest of the Pether family.

“Our family is completely broken. The children are trying to survive and get on with their lives with what happened with their father,” said Ms Pether, who added that the family is having to pay the cost of getting her husband the legal support he needs.

“It's got to the point where I have to put my car up for sale so that we can eat and the kids can stay at college.”

Calls for release

A renewed plea for the release of Mr Pether was made on Monday by the Australian government.

“Australian citizen Robert Pether has now been in prison in Iraq for four years,” said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong on social media platform X.

“He has served the custodial sentence imposed on him by the Iraqi courts. It’s time for him to be returned to his family.”

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report in 2022 describing Mr Pether’s imprisonment as “arbitrary and in contravention of international law”.

A ruling in 2023 by the International Chamber of Commerce's International Court of Arbitration said that the central bank was to blame for the contractual dispute.

Contract dispute results in prison sentence

Mr Pether and Mr Radwan were arrested in 2021 when they travelled to Iraq for what they thought was a routine business meeting. Employed as an engineer in Dubai for CME, Mr Pether was contracted to work on the central bank's headquarters on the banks of the Tigris River.

The men were detained at the meeting and have remained in custody since, having each received a five-year jail sentence and ordered to pay $12 million by the Iraqi court. The dispute was over a $33 million contract awarded to CME in 2015.

The project was put on hold a year later, with plummeting oil prices and Iraq’s war with the extremist group ISIS put forward as the main reasons.

Work resumed in 2018, with CME working for 39 of the 48 months as set out in the contract.

Payment was received for 32 of those months before being withheld.

CME was asked by the central bank to extend the contract by three months to make up for work that was suspended due to the onset of the pandemic.