Robert Pether has made his first public statements since his return to Australia, emphatically asserting his innocence and recounting a near-death experience in an Iraqi prison. The engineer spent over five years detained in Iraq before his release.
Australian Engineer Returns Home After Iraqi Ordeal
Hard
Pether and his Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were arrested in Baghdad in 2021 after arriving for a meeting with bank officials to resolve a commercial dispute involving their firm, CME Consulting. 'We were innocent when we were taken on the 7th of April 2021, and we remain innocent today,' Pether declared.
He described his release as coming 'hours away from death,' noting that his body was shutting down after months of critical illness and excruciating pain. He expressed profound gratitude to a woman he admires, calling her 'incredible' and saying the emotion of returning home is indescribable.
Sources: theguardian.com