Wife lashes Iraqi officials over jailing of Aussie engineer Robert Pether

The family of a jailed Australian engineer has accused Iraq’s judicial system of outright corruption and is demanding the Australian government intervene.

Robert Pether.

The family of an Australian engineer sentenced to five years in an Iraqi jail over a multi-million-dollar business deal turned bad has accused the country’s judicial system of outright corruption and is demanding the Australian government intervene.

Robert Pether has accused Iraqi officials of unlawfully holding him captive for five months as part of a plot to extort millions of dollars in free labour from his Dubai-base employer following a dispute over the construction of a building in Baghdad.

The 47-year-old mechanical engineer, who grew up on Sydney’s north shore and attended Knox Grammar School, has been behind bars in a heavily guarded facility on the outskirts of Baghdad since April 7, when he was ­arrested, along with an Egyptian colleague, after arriving for an ­appointment with the Central Bank of Iraq.

The meeting had been scheduled to discuss a multi-million-dollar blowout in construction costs of the bank’s new headquarters in what had been billed as the nation’s grandest infrastructure investment since the end of the Iraq War a decade ago.

Mr Pether’s wife, Desree, said her husband and colleague Khalid Zaghloul had been effectively taken hostage after their employer, CME Consulting, refused to complete the construction of the new bank for free after the ­initial timeframe for the four-year project blew out by several months. The men were on Wednesday found guilty of deception charges, reportedly relating to the payment for subcontractors, before the jail term was handed down and they were fined $USD12m ($16.5m)

Ms Pether, who is originally from the Blue Mountains but has been raising the couple’s three children in Ireland for the past year and a half, said the prospect of her husband being freed early was grim given the fine would have to be paid before officials would consider releasing him.

She said the sentence came after CME Consulting was dumped from the project and another contractor was brought in.

“I would love to be able to say justice finally prevailed, but no, corruption once again has prevailed even with the truth is glaringly obvious,” she said. “They were sentenced to five years and a fine that, coincidentally, equals (the Iraqi government’s) original verbal demands.

“They have committed no crime. This is a malicious prosecution; a complete fabrication.

“They know in their bones this is all political and a ­blatant set-up.”

She said her husband would be appealing the sentenced and urged Australian officials to help.

“There was an extension (to the project’s completion) due to unforeseen circumstances related to Covid and the Iraqi government wanted them to work for several months for free,” Ms ­Pether said.

“Robert’s employer said no, it wasn’t fair to work for free, and the Iraqi government responded by arresting Robert and Khalid.”

“It was a blatant case of leverage in a contract dispute.”