Australian engineer speaks after being freed from Baghdad jail

Australian engineer Robert Pether has paid an emotional tribute to his family for maintaining their fight for his freedom, moments after touching down in the Irish capital Dublin.

Mr Pether was finally allowed to leave Iraq on Monday, after an ordeal lasting more than five years, most of which was behind bars in a Baghdad jail.

He was arrested in 2021 along with an Egyptian colleague, and later found guilty by an Iraqi court of what his family long argued were trumped-up fraud charges relating to his involvement as a contractor working on the massive Central Bank of Iraq headquarters construction project.

His jail sentence came with a massive fine, worth $16 million.

Mr Pether, 51, was released from jail in June last year, but was banned from leaving Iraq until this week.

Speaking to the media at Dublin Airport, and fighting back tears shortly after his reunion with his family, who are based in Ireland, Mr Pether said his wife and children had "lived this every single day with me".

"Our children lost years with their dad. They watched their mum fight every day to try and bring me home," he said.

"They grew up with uncertainty, fear and circumstances that no child should ever have to carry.

"I am so thankful for my wife Desree, for always fighting for me, while at the same time holding our family together, all while dealing with a situation that took an enormous toll on her too."

Mr Pether said his focus was on his family, even though he appreciated there would be many questions about his circumstances.

"There will be time to talk about what happened, why it happened, who was responsible and why nobody should ever be allowed to do this to another person or another family again," Mr Pether said.

"But today, more than anything, I want to talk about the people who carried us through it."

'We were innocent'

Mr Pether's wife Desree had been his most vocal advocate, campaigning for years for his release.

She had repeatedly raised concerns about his physical and mental health behind bars, and flagged serious flaws in his prosecution — particularly arguing he was forced to sign a confession, written in Arabic, without knowing what the document said.

In 2021, the United Nations investigated the situation facing Mr Pether and his Egyptian colleague, Khalid Zaghloul, and said the pair had been subjected to "acts of torture and ill treatment."

"Today I don't want to spend too much time talking about courts or governments or everything that was done to us," Mr Pether said in Dublin.

"I do need to say something about the injustice of what happened, because coming home today should never be mistaken for that injustice somehow having been corrected.

"It wasn't. Not even close."

He said the convictions against him and Mr Zaghloul had not be overturned, and neither man "has been exonerated".

"We were innocent when we were taken on 7th April 2021, and we remain innocent today," Mr Pether said.

"I was released from prison hours away from death, my body shutting down, after months of critical illness and excruciating pain, but I remained trapped in Iraq.

"I didn't have my passport, visa or identity documents, and I had no ability to move around freely or safely, leave the country or even go to a hospital."

'Thank you seems completely inadequate'

Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong had welcomed Mr Pether's release earlier in the day, and said she spoke to him before he left Baghdad.

"I know this has taken a real toll on him and his family," she said in Canberra.

Ireland's Taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin posted on social media Mr Pether's release would "come as a great relief" and said he appreciated "the Iraqi Government responding to the calls for his release from both Ireland and Australia".

Ms Pether had accused the Australian government, under prime ministers Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese, of dragging their feet in pushing for his release, saying at times the family felt abandoned by their home country.

She turned to the Irish government for help, despite the fact Mr Pether does not share the Irish citizenship his wife and children have.

"One of the things this experience has taught me is that governments are ultimately made up of people," Mr Pether said.

"And sometimes an individual deciding to care, to pick up a telephone, to keep asking a question or simply refusing to give up can change the course of somebody else's life.

"There are some people who went so far beyond anything we could ever have asked of them that saying thank you seems completely inadequate."