Ireland – Roscommon Herald, February 10, 2025
An Elphin family has been left devastated and heartbroken with the news broke that father of four Robert Pether will not be released as expected from an Iraqi prison but instead is facing another 15 years’ incarceration on new charges.
His wife Desree Pether, along with her sons and daughter were expecting to be reunited with Robert on January 8th but now fear he will no longer survive the extra prison time. They are also faced with selling their family home in Elphin, due to mounting legals costs estimated to be in the region of €130,000. Desree also fears she may have to sell her car as they face this latest legal battle.
Robert, who is originally from Australia but was living in Elphin, was jailed in Baghdad amid a €20m contract row between his Dubai-based employer and the Central Bank of Iraq. He and a colleague were arrested in Baghdad on April 7th, 2021, by 12 police officers who stormed a meeting the men were having with the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in November of that year that Robert 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.
