An Australian engineer imprisoned on trumped-up charges is languishing in Baghdad after more than five years, while DFAT provides training to his accusers. Kim Wingerei with the story.
It’s been five years and three months since Desree Pether and her children last saw Robert Pether, her husband and their father. After the Christmas holidays in January 2021, he was called to a meeting with the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), where he had been working as a construction engineer. At that meeting, Pether was confronted by accusations related to a conflict over payments to his employer, Dubai-based CME Consulting.
On April 7, 2021, he was arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up money-laundering charges. During the subsequent interrogation and trial, it became clear to Pether and his co-accused colleague, Egyptian Khalid Zaghoul Radwan, they were being used as a scapegoat in a conflict that had nothing to do with anything they had done.
Robert was tortured, mistreated and forced to sign a “confession” written in Arabic,
a language he neither speaks nor reads. During the trial, the judge ignored his pleas and sentenced him and Radwan to five years in prison.
They were released in June last year, but are unable to leave Iraq until they pay a fine of $US12 million, an amount commensurate with what the CBI claims is owed to them by CME Consulting.
The Australian Government has a contract with CBI to provide anti-money-laundering training to the bank’s staff.
Meanwhile, Robert is living in Baghdad and is not allowed to travel. He is seriously ill, unable to work, and has limited means to support himself, let alone escape a debt he doesn’t owe.
Human rights violations
Since his release in June, 2025, Pether’s health has continued to deteriorate. According to Desree Pether, he has “a serious life-threatening skin condition and a previous history of aggressive melanoma. He requires proper specialist assessment and treatment, yet remains trapped in Iraq and unable to access the level of care his condition demands.”
Earlier this year, an assessment by a clinical psychologist states Robert “presents with severe existential psychological harm, including pervasive hopelessness, emotional exhaustion, profound detachment from self and others, and a pervasive loss of meaning.”
This is merely the latest in many authoritative reports presented to DFAT, Penny Wong, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International during his ordeal. In 2022, The UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that the Robert and Radwan detentions were arbitrary and in violation of their human rights.
The report says Pether was denied unhindered access to a lawyer, the charges were changed several times before and during the trial, and their lawyers were not given access to their case files.
The UN report’s conclusion was, “the detention of the two men is being used to gain advantage in a high-stakes commercial dispute between CME Consulting and the Central Bank of Iraq, and
that there is no proper legal basis for the continued deprivation of liberty of Messrs. Pether and Radwan.
In 2025, another report by the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment “urged the Government of Iraq to ensure that a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Mr Pether was undertaken.”
There is no evidence this has ever happened. Quite the contrary, Pether has since been told that him disavowing the UN reports is an additional condition of his release from his current de facto house arrest.
DFAT support
After Robert’s arrest, it took 26 days before an Australian consular officer visited him in prison. The Egyptian consulate provided support to Radwan after three days.
According to Desree Pether, who lives with her children in Ireland and is a dual citizen, “We’ve had a more constructive and supportive relationship with the Irish and Egyptian Government officials throughout this nightmare…than with our own Government.”
Numerous representations have been made to DFAT and to Foreign Minister Penny Wong since his arrest and since his release last year. At times, DFAT has been seen to categorise Robert’s case as a “contract dispute.” DFAT is also on record as disagreeing with the UN reports and stating that Robert’s detention was “not arbitrary because he had been through a court process”.
In February this year, Senator David Shoebridge again brought up Robert’s case with Penny Wong. Wong stated that the government has asked for a lifting of the travel ban, and “made representations at the highest level,” but was otherwise bordering on dismissive of the pleas for support of an Australian Citizen wrongfully accused, imprisoned, and now detained.
In particular, Wong was unwilling to make any connection between the training contract DFAT has with CBI and Robert’s case, claiming it was related to a mutual obligation on “anti-terrorism activities”.
A spokesperson for David Shoebridge told MWM, “It is our position that
Australia’s ongoing work with the Iraqi Central Bank is untenable while they continue to be implicated in Robert’s case.
This is something we raised with DFAT directly, including in Senate Estimates.”
The Greens and others are also considering a call for a Parliamentary inquiry into the case, but at the moment, the main focus is on bringing Robert Pether out of Iraq before it’s too late.