After years of campaigning from lawyers, human rights specialists and his family, Robert Pether landed at Dublin Airport on Monday a free man.
The Australian engineer was arrested in Baghdad in 2021, thrown in prison without a fair trial, and forced to spend more than four years in a cell where the United Nations deemed he was arbitrarily detained. After being released in June 2025, he spent more than a year being prevented from leaving Iraq before finally being given back his freedom this week.
While Pether was detained, his wife Desree Pether waged an unwavering campaign for his release. The pair were reunited, along with the couple’s children, when Pether landed in Ireland.
Crikey was granted an interview with Pether on Friday morning, the first interview with Australian media that he has given since his release.
There were a couple of times when you thought you were maybe getting out, and didn’t. How did that impact your experience of the time when it actually did happen? Did you believe it?
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No, is the short answer. The previous times, the first one or two times, yeah, I got really excited and looking forward to it, and then when it didn’t happen, you just plummet to the absolute depths.
This was about the fifth time, so yeah, we didn’t get excited. It’s just like, nah, if it happens, it happens, because that was part of the self-protection mechanism. You have to, you know, isolate yourself as much as you can to survive this sort of environment… It’s a difficult one to explain.
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You always have to keep some hope. You’ve got to keep hope alive, but you can’t act on that hope. I guess the mantra I was using was: “You hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” Because that way, when the worst happened, [it] didn’t devastate you quite as badly. Now, a release is a huge thing; that’s the absolute best. But neither Desree or myself got our hopes up. Nothing was real until I crossed out of Iraqi airspace.
The time I actually really started to feel it was when the flight was coming into Dublin Airport. We banked, I looked out the window, I could see Dublin. I could see the greenery. That was when I felt it. At that point, I felt, “I am going to see my family. This is it. This is the end; the terrible experience is finished.”
What was the first thing you did when you got off the plane?
I had the Australian ambassador in Ireland come up and give me a hug, and then put me in the vehicle to drive me to where my family was waiting. It was all very well organised. I literally was escorted right the way through to walk in through the doors, and here was my family in front of me. And that was an incredible moment. That was where all the years just dropped away, and I was there with them.
My kids were so much bigger. I hardly recognised my daughter. She was eight years old when I last saw her, and now she’s 14. My sons were now men; they were no longer teenagers.
It was tough seeing the kids so much bigger because seeing them on a video screen was one thing, but actually being able to hug them and seeing that all of a sudden my younger son is taller than me — that was a little bit daunting. But it wasn’t anything upsetting. It was just, wow, things have changed.
We just reunited immediately, and that was fantastic. That was one of the most incredible moments of my life.
Was there something else you’ve been looking forward to other than seeing your family, like eating or drinking something or doing something particular?
I wouldn’t say right away, but yeah, this week has been an absolute whirlwind. Monday was [about] seeing them, but then I had to go to hospital, and then Tuesday I needed to go and thank some people. Wednesday was a nice day. We just had a day at home, and that was really nice. Just spending time with each other, and we did much the same today.
One of my sons has taken a huge interest in cooking, so having him cook me a meal was fantastic. I really enjoyed that because it’s something we hadn’t been able to do before I was taken.
What was the meal he made?
Actually, you’re going to laugh at this, because when I was asked, “What do you miss or what did I want when I got back?”, I said a bacon sandwich. Well, he went and organised that for me.
Bit more than just a sandwich; he made a full cooked breakfast, which was something we used to always do before I was taken, on the weekends. And just having him do that for me, it was fantastic.
In the time when you were kept in Iraq, but out of the cell, was food an issue, or did you have what you needed to stay basically healthy?
Look, I was fairly well hidden. Obviously, key people knew where I was, but we did not advertise where I was. I had a kitchen, so I was able to cook my own meals, which was great because I’d just give the people that were looking after me a list of shopping each week, and they’d bring it back for me.
I just prepared my own food. Because I had been so sick before I got there, I had a lot of problems with food at that time. I still can’t touch red meat.
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You probably saw the picture of me, from about August 2025, where I’m looking fairly skeletal. That was weeks after I had been released, so I was already starting to put weight on at that stage, and, as you can see, I no longer look anything like that, so it obviously worked.
I basically had three key ones that I used to rotate between: one was a knockoff of a Nando’s chicken and rice dish, and that was actually pretty good, to be honest. I used to regularly cook up just fried rice and chicken, and the other one I used to do a lot of was South Indian chicken curry with rice.
What was your method for getting through the days when you were in the cell?
I’d rather not talk too much about the actual prison time. I’m still coming to terms with it. I’m not ready to revisit that one yet.
How about when you were in hiding?
I was online all day, every day pretty much. Apart from talking with my wife and my kids and a couple of other people, I would be dropping down online rabbit holes; I was looking at some engineering aspects. I was looking at the social, political aspects, all sorts of things.
So I would spend a lot of time poking around the internet, just filling in time that way. And reading. I did a lot of reading as well. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and during that period I did read a lot of books. So yeah, they’re probably the two key things.
Were there any books that you remember that made an impact?
I got a few biographies and a few memoirs of people who’ve been through similar situations. Some of those helped, but other than that, I was just cycling through anything. I wasn’t fussy. Whatever I could get my hands on, I was reading.
One that did make an impact on me was Terry Waite’s biography, because Terry was my mentor through this. He’s become a very good friend over the years, but I had already been interacting with Terry, where he’d been guiding me through how to survive, and when I got hold of his book, I read that thing cover to cover a couple of times over.
There wouldn’t be many people in the world who could fully relate.
No, the thing is with arbitrary detention, it’s a small group, it’s a small community. The way we put it is that it’s a small club with a very high entry fee. Some of the stuff we’ve been through, we understand each other, but it’s very hard to explain to anyone else. It was invaluable having someone who had been through it himself to help guide me.
Did you have a phone in prison that you could use?
No, but I had access to WhatsApp fairly regularly. The prison only had phones that did local calls, so they had to make provisions for international calls for me. The easiest option was to facilitate WhatsApp, so I would basically use WhatsApp calls to call with my family or with Terry.
You had several governments trying to get you out: Australia, Ireland, and Egypt, is that correct?
Yes, that’s right. Egypt was working for me because my colleague [Khalid Radwan] is Egyptian. We had involvement from the Australian embassy […] and then through the Irish government because of my wife and children being Australian and Irish dual nationals.
What did you think of Australia’s handling of the situation?
I’m going to be careful what I say here, but they could have done more in the early stages. The last couple of weeks, I can’t fault.
In the early stages, I think there was more they could have done, and that would have made a big difference, especially if they’d been more active before I disappeared into the Iraqi legal system.
Now, as I said to the embassy at the time of my release, there are a number of lessons learnt that I will happily sit with them and go through and discuss — but down the track, after I’m recovered, so I think at this stage, the best I could say is they could have done more. They could have done much more in the early stages, and that would have probably changed the outcome.
Were you aware of any of the high-level diplomatic discussions that were going on?
While I was aware of a lot of things going on, there were also a lot of things that I had asked to deliberately be withheld from me. Because one of the things of being in captivity that long, my filters are zero, so I tend to blurt out the wrong thing at the wrong time. So I stayed fairly unaware of it all because that way I couldn’t stick my foot in it, or mess it up — because obviously things were delicate, and the last thing you need is for a loose cannon inside Iraq to be shooting their mouth off when they shouldn’t be, and without meaning to or realising they were.
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You’ve unfortunately become very familiar with the Iraqi legal system. Could you describe that to us so we can understand how it differs from what we’re used to?
The system there is challenging. They basically act with impunity. They do as they wish.
The best, most succinct version I would say is in Australia, you’re innocent until proven guilty. In Iraq, you’re guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you’re still guilty.
Evidence is not necessary. Evidence disproving charges is not always considered. It depends on the case, the judge, a whole bunch of things.
The reason I got out was because within that system, with the new prime minister, there was a reconsideration.
From what I saw from the outside during this time, there seems to have been a lot of very absurd bureaucratic situations worthy of a Kafka novel. Is there something especially ridiculous you know of that would give people an idea of the absurdity?
Absolutely. Look, I can assure you that this whole situation is one where the truth is stranger than fiction. Let me give you one example. The Australian government was providing training and support to the Central Bank of Iraq.
This started after I was taken after the first United Nations report, which determined I was in arbitrary detention, and the training was being given to the very people, the very entity that was actually holding me, which is for zero benefit.
They didn’t say, “Look, hey, you know, we’ll give you all this training, but you’re going to let the guy go. We know he’s in arbitrary detention”.
No, it was just they gave them the training, and there were three UN [reports], but the training was still going on after the second UN report was delivered, and we were not told about it. We did not know about it. We found out about this by accident, and years later, when it was too late to do anything with it.
That was one instance where bureaucracy was ludicrous and just did not make sense.
When you think about the people responsible for your treatment, whether the ones keeping you there or the ones behind the day-to-day mistreatment, can you imagine what they were thinking? Is it possible to understand?
Firstly, there’s a distinct lack of humanity in that country, and secondly, they’re afraid. That country is run by fear. They’re afraid of being held accountable, or if they don’t do something, they get punished themselves. So it’s largely fear-based. Unfortunately, people who are typically good people do terrible things when it’s for self-preservation.
Were there any moments of humanity?
Within the actual prison and punishment system, very few. But outside of that, I have met some of the bravest, most incredible people I’ve ever known in my life, with a huge amount of humanity, and they were from the church that was looking after me in the last year.
They took me in when I was in my hour of need, as such, and they made sure I was fed, clothed, nursed me back to health, and looked after me, gave me friendship, and it was an incredible experience. So I’ve seen both the best and the worst of humanity. Both spectrums were there.
Are there things you are looking forward to doing now?
Oh yeah, lots of things. I’m looking forward to going to a beach, or going hiking somewhere, or snowboarding. These are all things that I’d love to do, whether or not I can.
One of the things about arbitrary detention is that you do get a different perception of what that means. I’ll give you a quick analogy: When I was first released from the prison, which was in July 2025, my first night was spent in a hotel, and the thing that made the biggest impact on me was a light switch. And you’re going to say, “Why? That makes no sense”. The answer is because it allowed me to control my environment. I could decide if I was in the light or the dark.
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I had not been able to do that for years. Lights were on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so being able to actually have control, take some control back for myself, that was incredible that night.
So that sort of experience gives you a different perception. When you have everything taken away from you, you are trying anything you can think of to regain some control. And now that I’m free, I have no such restrictions. But it will take time before I can really do all the things I want to do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not already thinking about them.
Are you in touch with your colleague and co-prisoner Khalid Radwan? Do you know if he’s OK?
Yes, we actually left on the same day. We’ve decided to give ourselves a couple of weeks off first, and then we’ll catch up. We are good friends; we have been for years, and we have a shared experience that bonds us, pretty much, for life. When you spend four-and-a-half years, where at all times of day and night you’re within five meters of someone, you know them pretty well by the end of it. And we were already pretty close beforehand.
We were already close friends beforehand and worked well together. And after that, yeah, we are very tight, and we will always be in touch.
Is there anything you want to make sure people reading this understand?
I think the main message that I need to get out is that we were always innocent. We were employees. There was never any evidence against us. We should never have been arrested. There was never a basis to hold us, but it happened.
Unfortunately, the sad reality is that all they achieved was that I lost six years of my life, as did my colleague. Our careers were destroyed, our health was destroyed, our families were destroyed, psychologically we’re struggling still. And we were put through all of this for what? It’s completely unfair, but yet it happened.
Does it feel strange to think that this actually happened?
In some ways, it seems almost like a dream, but again, this is the brain’s mechanism of protecting you. And I will have to spend time with psychologists and unpick a lot of it and make sure I understand it, so that it doesn’t impact down the track.
My wife is a lot brighter than me sometimes, and she said to me: “When you get on the plane, that’s the end of it. When you get off, it is a story of what happened”. And she’s right; it is. We do have to put it behind us.
Will we be seeking some sort of accountability? Yes, we will. I won’t go into further detail there because that’s something that will come down the track.
But yeah, it does seem strange that it’s in the past, but I’m also grateful. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I am free and that I am back with my family, and that, you know, this has all happened — and it’s finished.
I’m free, but I’m still grasping that, which is, strangely enough, difficult.