Australian engineer Robert Pether, who lived in Dubai, says in his first interview since returning to Dublin that he is still adjusting to freedom after being released from a Baghdad prison in June last year. He and Egyptian colleague Khaled Radwan travelled to Baghdad in April 2021 and were detained four months later over a contract dispute between their employer, CME Consulting, and the Central Bank of Iraq; they were fined $12 million. Pether, 50, was barred from leaving Iraq due to financial claims linked to the case. He is due to have surgery for high-risk skin cancer that worsened while he was in prison, and will work with lawyers to seek accountability for what he calls a huge injustice. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled in 2021 that his detention breached international law, and he urged other wrongly detained people and their families not to give up.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Original headline: You have to keep fighting : Former Dubai resident gives first interview after five - year detention in Iraq
Read the original on thenationalnews.com ↗
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