An n family says they ‘are broken’ by the jailing of an innocent father-of-three who has been held ‘hostage’ in an Iraqi jail for three years in appalling conditions as his health alarmingly deteriorates.
n engineer Robert Pether was thrown into prison in April 2021 after seeking to be paid by the Iraqi government for work he had done in the country.
On Wednesday his wife Desree Pether made a direct plea to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong for ‘more to be done’.
Desree Pether (pictured left) has made a desperate plea for ‘s prime minister and foreign minister to step up efforts to release her husband Robert Pether (pictured centre)
She told Sydney radio station 2GB’s Ben Fordham on Thursday that she had a message for Mr Albanese and Ms Wong that comes from Robert himself.
‘Please do absolutely everything you can and do more (to get Robert released),’ she said.
‘So much more should be done or could be done.
‘We want him home. We want this nightmare to end.
‘It’s a very crowded prison.
‘It’s not like a prison in , it’s quite harsh conditions.’
It’s understood Mr Pether has been languishing in an overcrowded cell where the lights are left on 24/7.
‘Robert’s health is deteriorating,’ Ms Pether said.
‘He was never sick before he was arrested and he has a serious skin condition and it has got exponentially worse since he was arrested.’
Prior to his imprisonment Mr Pether suffered melanoma and since being in jail, lesions and moles have sprung up in places where cancerous growths were previously removed.
Photos were sent to a doctor in Italy who recommended a new round of surgery but that is impossible in the unsanitary jail conditions.
The 47-year-old is also reportedly suffering from bladder and kidney infections as well as depression.
Ms Pether said the stress ‘of sitting in prison for three years trying to prove you are innocent when no proof is accepted’ was taking its toll on her husband.
Ms Pether says she can see the toll their dad’s absence has taken on the couple’s three children ‘in their eyes’
In a trial that lasted just 15 minutes, Mr Pether and an Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were found guilty of deception and both given five years ‘hard imprisonment’ and lumped with a $16 million fine.
The pair were arrested after being lured to an office with the promise of resolving their outstanding claim of not being paid for work they had done on the $1billion Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) offices in Baghdad.
‘Disappeared for days. We didn’t know if they were alive or dead,’ Ms Pether said on Thursday.
His treatment has attracted condemnation from the UN, which has noted 30 violations of international law in the case and classified Mr Pether as a ‘hostage’.
In an emotional Facebook post at the start of this month, Ms Pether shared more of her own fraught state.
‘I miss him. All the time,’ she wrote.
‘He shouldn’t still be unlawfully imprisoned in #iraq. He should NEVER have been trapped, arrested and imprisoned in the first place! The treatment of two innocent men is absolutely heinous!’
She revealed on Thursday that the family is struggling to cope.
Mr Pether was arrested when he went to an Iraqi government office to settle an outstanding claim for payment
‘We’re all broken, they’re broken,’ she told Sydney radio station 2GB interviewer Ben Fordham on Thursday about her children.
‘Watching the impact on them you can see it in their eyes. The boys have grown into men while he was away.
‘It’s so excruciating. They were so proud of him, what he was doing and then this happened.’
Ms Pether, who is in Ireland presently with her children, said trying to explain to the couple’s eight-year-daughter ‘that bad things happen to good people… it is just so hard.’
She said her husband was ‘one of ’s best engineers’.
‘He’s out there on the world stage,’ she said.
‘He could have done anything he wanted, literally take on any problem but he really wanted to make a difference.’