Australia looks ‘weak’ if it can’t solve ‘hostage crisis’ of man jailed in Iraq

An Australian man jailed in Iraq is a “hostage” who is being subjected to “grotesque and vindictive show trials” and the Albanese government will look “weak” if it can’t secure his release, his lawyer said. 

On January 2, the family of Australian engineer Robert Pether will mark a grim milestone: he will have spent 1,000 days behind bars in Iraq. “We are absolutely devastated,” Pether’s wife Desree told Crikey. “A third Christmas imprisoned in Iraq, and all the while the human rights violations continue.”

Pether and his Egyptian colleague Khaled Radwan were sentenced to five years’ prison by a Baghdad court in 2021 and ordered to pay $12 million, according to the news outlet The National.

The men were in Iraq doing work on behalf of their Dubai employer CME Consulting, which involved building headquarters for the Central Bank of Iraq. But years of pandemic and security-related delays led to a dispute between the bank and CME, which ended up with the two employees being jailed. 

Earlier this year, a ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration found that the central bank was to blame for the dispute and ordered it to pay $13 million to Pether and Radwan’s employer. 

UK human rights lawyer Peter Griffin believes the ruling undermines the basis for Pether’s incarceration. Speaking to Crikey, Griffin described Pether as a “hostage” and said his detention had become “a political problem” for Australia. 

“This is a hostage crisis. Iraq is holding Rob Pether for ransom. An Australian citizen held hostage in the Middle East. Just think about that for a minute,” Griffin said. “The Australian government knows Rob is a hostage but they are behaving like he was arrested for a traffic violation or something.

“If Rob was American or British I believe he would have been released long ago. Australia needs to up its game and bring its hostage home. This has become a political problem now: is Australia so weak that it can’t get its hostages home?”

Griffin, director of the firm Slaney Advisors, said his team was trying to “create a coalition of interested parties who have leverage over Iraq” to push for the men’s release, including lenders, construction companies and oil firms.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) secretary Jan Adams told budget estimates in October that Australian government staff had made 157 representations on Pether’s behalf since he was detained. On October 26 she said: “We will continue to provide consular assistance to Mr Pether and his family. Consular officers have visited Mr Pether 82 times since his arrest, most recently on 12 October.”

Adams said she wouldn’t go into “the details of the arguments that are being made”, citing privacy reasons, but added: “We continue to raise his case in all its complexity with the Iraqi authorities.”

DFAT was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline. 

In March 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report that described Pether’s imprisonment as arbitrary and in contravention of international law.

“Every international proceeding has held Iraq guilty and the UN has called for Rob’s immediate and unconditional release,” Griffin said. “Rob is now subject to a series of show trials that are simply grotesque and vindictive.” 

The Iraqi consulate in Sydney and CME were contacted for comment.