Tánaiste Micheál Martin has met the family of Irish resident Robert Pether who has been “arbitrarily detained” in Iraq for more than 1,000 days.
Mr Pether, a construction engineer from Australia, is not an Irish citizen but lived in Roscommon with his Irish wife and their three children before his imprisonment.
Although the Australian government is leading consular efforts at securing his release from an Iraqi prison, in recent months Irish officials have also been working behind the scenes on the case.
In 2021, Mr Pether and his Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were sentenced five years’ imprisonment and fined $12 million by an Iraqi court.
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Both had been working on a new headquarters in Baghdad for the Central Bank of Iraq when they were arrested. The case centres on a dispute over money between Mr Pether’s employer, CME Consulting and the Iraqi government.
The International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) Court of Arbitration recently ruled the Iraqi government was at fault in the dispute. A 2022 report from a UN body determined the prosecution of Mr Pether was against international law and that he and his co-accused were subject to “abusive and coercive” interrogations. It also concluded he was subject to “arbitrary detention”.
However, despite campaigns by his family and supporters, there has been little progress in securing his release.
Last year, Ireland’s Ambassador to Jordan, Marianne Bolger, who is also accredited to Iraq, raised Mr Pether’s case with Iraqi ministers and officials during a visit to Baghdad.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has also raised the issue with officials in the newly opened Iraqi embassy in Dublin on numerous occasions.
Mr Martin, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, met Mr Pether’s family last week and undertook to continue to assist in whatever way possible. He also raised the case with Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last September.
Mr Martin’s department has offered to assist Australian consular efforts should it be required.
“The conviction and imprisonment in Iraq of this person, who has an Irish family and is normally resident in Ireland, is a serious concern. There are good reasons to question the basis on which he was convicted,” Mr Martin told Sinn Féin TD for Roscommon–Galway Claire Kerrane, who has been campaigning for Mr Pether’s release.
Ms Kerrane on Monday called on the Government to do more to help Mr Pether.
“It is essential that at every opportunity the Irish Government raise Robert’s case with the Iraqi authorities and where possible that they seek out such opportunities also,” she said. “Robert should not be in prison. He should not be away from his family – his wife and his children who miss him desperately. We need to see every effort made to get him home.”
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