LAST UPDATE | 6 Jun 2025

AUSTRLIAN-BORN IRISH resident Robert Pether still has to face three “ludicrous” legal battles in Iraq before he can come home, a lawyer representing the engineer has said.

Pether, an engineer who is an Irish resident, was released on bail after being imprisoned in Iraq for the last four years, Tánaiste and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Harris confirmed yesterday.

He had been working in the country alongside his Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan for Dubai-based firm CME Consulting for over four years until a contract dispute disrupted their work.

In 2021, Pether and Radwan were invited to attend the Iraqi Central Bank for a meeting, where they were arrested. Both men were sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay a $12m fine, despite allegedly no evidence being shown at the day-long trial.

Though welcoming the news of his release, Peter Griffin, a human rights solicitor who has been one of the six international lawyers working on Pether’s case, said the Irish resident still faces three more legal battles.

Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Drive Time this evening, Griffin said Pether’s passport and other travel documents have been confiscated, and he has been placed on a travel ban for the duration of his bail term.

“That’s where it gets a little murky,” Griffin said, before explaining that Pether must first pay two $13m fines, one from a criminal fine and another from a civil trial.

“[It] is ludicrous in many respects, not only because there is no provision in Iraqi law to levy fines in US dollars, there’s no provision in Iraqi law to level fines of that amount,” he said.

The man has also been “threatened” with money laundering charges, Griffin said. 

‘Very distressing’

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that the government are working to bring Australian-born Irish resident Robert Pether home, after he was released on bail following four years of imprisonment in Iraq. 

He also said that while this is “a good first step”, the government must work “very hard” with countries “such as Iraq and others, in terms of the treatment of Irish citizens”. 

Speaking during a visit to a school in Cork this morning, the Taoiseach said said the situation is “very, very distressing” for Pether’s family.

Long-running diplomatic and legal efforts have been ongoing to return him to his home with his family in Co Roscommon. The Geneva-based UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the case has been referred to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture. 

The Working Group also had concerns about the conduct of the trial, where it has been claimed that “during the trial, Pether’s statements were purposely mistranslated to indicate guilt.”

The man’s case came to national attention in 2022 after Desree and his family made a public appeal to the Irish government for assistance in bringing him back to Roscommon. Six international lawyers were working on securing Pether’s release.

One lawyer working on the case at the time described the case as “a state-sponsored abduction”. 

Martin said: “I don’t want to say things that may in any way hinder his eventual arrival back to Ireland. I believe this is a good first step, but we have to work very hard with countries such as Iraq and others in terms of the treatment of Irish citizens.

“He’s an Australian citizen, which has been a complicating factor in all of this, but both ourselves and the Australian government have been working together in terms of endeavoring to get him out.”

Lawyer Griffin thanked Taoiseach Martin, Tánaiste Harris and former foreign minister Simon Coveney for their diplomatic efforts over the years. He also thanked the efforts from the Australian government too.

‘Completely unrecognisable’

Pether’s wife Desree told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning that it felt as though a bus had hit her when she was informed late last night of her husband’s release on bail.

“It’s the end of the work week in Iraq, and now they have Eid, so they’re off for the next few days,” said Desree. “We are trying to work out the logistics of it and keeping him well, because he’s very sick at the moment.”

She spoke to Pether last night and saw him on video for the first time in over four years: “He’s completely unrecognisable, and it’s a shock to the system to see how far he’s declined.

“He’s not well at all, and he really needs to come home so that he can get the proper medical care that he needs.”

However, she said the people who ran the prison were “very good to him” and that the people in the cell with him also looked after him.

“He’s fainted a few times in the last couple of months due to the fact that he’s not eating properly,” sad Desree. “And if he fainted, he had a bunch of people in the cell looking after him and giving him some tea with honey to try and help him.

“It was the best of a bad situation.”

Griffin said Pether looks aged, emaciated and gaunt, adding: “He is unrecognisable to the pictures that we will have seen in the press.”

Additional reporting by Jane Moore and Diarmuid Pepper