County Roscommon family facing fifth Christmas without dad Robert who remains a ‘hostage’

An Elphin family is facing a fifth Christmas without husband and father Robert Pether who, despite being released from an Iraqi prison in June, remains a “hostage” in the country.

When 50-year-old Robert, who is originally from Australia, was released after four and a half years of incarceration there was an expectation that he would be allowed travel home to his family, but this has never materialised. Instead he remains in the country where “he is a prisoner but not within a prison,” while his family has been left on the verge of being financially ruined after fighting for his release for nearly five years.

The father of three and construction engineer was jailed in a €20 million contract row between his Dubai-based employer and the Central Bank of Iraq after he and a colleague were arrested in Baghdad on April 7th, 2021.

His wife Desree described her husband as being a “hostage” in the country. Life for the family “is like torture every day. We are in pain. We are on a roundabout,” she said adding there are growing fears about Robert’s mental and physical health.

“He was released on June 6th but he could barely walk, he was at stage two starvation bordering on stage three, which is the stage when your organs shut. He was really sick and in six months has only put on 5 kilos so something's definitely wrong,” Desree told the Roscommon Herald.

On his release he had no passport, no visa to allow him to work or earn an income, and no way of going to see a doctor. The family had to pay for 16 weeks accommodation where he stayed in a room without windows for his own safety.

Since then he has friends looking after him but the costs involved have taken a serious toll on the family’s finances.

“He's still technically in arbitrary detention because he can't live a life, he can't engage with society and he's sort of a prisoner, he's just not in the prison. He was released but is not free and there are still constant threats of new fabricated charges. It’s the classic hostage taking behaviour and it's very, very difficult,” Desree said.

She added: “Mentally he is absolutely at rock bottom,” with the family unable to visit him.

They talk to him every day and are still fighting hard to see him return home but admits there isn’t much light at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s like an explosion has gone off in our family and we have suffered through this for over four and a half years - the injustice, the begging people to help that should help him and aren’t, or are not doing enough for an innocent man trying to prove his innocence.” 

The costs of fighting for Robert have had a huge impact on the family. Seven months ago Desree wad forced to sell her car and also intends to put their home on the market. She explained there is no heating in the home apart from open fires. 

“We have small rooms and we all go there. We also have hot water bottles.” She said: “We are just feeling very abandoned, just wondering how we're going to even survive financially after Christmas; we're barely making it to Christmas.

“It just goes on and on and on. It's so fabricated, they (Robert and his colleague) should never have been arrested in the first place, they were literally just pawns in a game of chess. If we did a movie about this nobody would believe it.” Desree continues to fight for Robert, visiting the Iraq Embassies in Dublin, in London, in Canberra, Australia, repeating the same pleas for help over and over.

“The Irish government has done a lot, going above and beyond but even that's sort of quietening down a bit. The Australian government most certainly have not fought for him the way they should have. We are constantly writing to them and begging them to do the right thing and particularly with that UN report that was published - the second one, which was published in May - which has multiple counts of torture and says that he's a hostage. Any country that's a signatory to the UN charters should be stepping up and fighting for Robert, everyone should be standing up and demanding coherence with international law.” 

She also added that before his arrest Robert had been in the process of applying for Irish Citizenship. Desree has continued with this process saying: “I first submitted it 22 months ago and then eight months later it came back and they said that I'd used the wrong application form from the website. It (the application) had a cover letter explaining Robert’s situation with a copy of the first UN report and I resubmitted it in November last year.

“It's 22 months and we're still waiting; it's not like he was asking for anything except to be accepted. The Irish government has assured me that that they're doing everything they can and treating Robert as if he's a citizen with regards to trying to help him. Being a citizen would mean being able to get support from the EU.” 

Robert’s three children desperately miss their father. Desree explained their son Flynn is in his final year of engineering, following in his father’s footsteps. Robert wanted to be there to help him, and this has been very difficult on both of them. 

“Flynn has crawled up a mountain,” she added and said her other son Oscar and daughter Nala both miss their father desperately and this has been a hugely difficult time for them. Desree has not been able to see her other son who lives in Australia for two years such is their financial situation.

She added: “We feel abandoned and left alone. We are knocked back on every front when we look for support.” As they face another Christmas without Robert they continue to fight for his release. “I don’t know if we will ever see him again,” admitted Desree who adding, “this is excruciating painful at the moment.” 

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that it "has been working consistently to secure Mr Pether’s release from detention in Iraq and his return to his family in Ireland. We have been working closely with Australian Government to achieve this. We remain in close and regular contact with the Pether family on all aspects of this case and continue to offer assistance."

There is a fundraising campaign running in an attempt to recoup some of the expenses the family has incurred in this fight for Robert’s freedom. That chuffed.org campaign can be found here .