Detention of Australian man in Iraq ‘violates international law’ and UN should step in, lawyers say
Lawyers for detained Australian man Robert Pether have complained to the United Nations about his treatment by Iraq alleging it violates international law and is a textbook case of arbitrary detention.
Pether has been held in a Baghdad jail for 84 days on unknown charges, which appear to stem from a business dispute between his firm, CME Consulting, and the Central Bank of Iraq.
Pether, an engineer, was working on the construction of the bank’s new Baghdad headquarters and had travelled to Iraq at the invitation of bank staff to resolve a protracted contractual dispute that had held up the high-profile project.
On 7 April, the day of the planned meeting, Pether and an Egyptian colleague, Khalid Zaghloul, were arrested.
No charge has been laid and his family says the Iraqi authorities have denied him proper access to a lawyer, held him for long periods in solitary confinement, and strictly controlled contact with the outside world.
Now, Pether’s lawyers have lodged a complaint with the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention, which has the ability to investigate cases of deprivation of liberty imposed arbitrarily or inconsistently with the international standards.
The Guardian has not seen a copy of the confidential complaint.
But it is understood the complaint urges the UN to urgently appeal to the government of Iraq. It says the pair are being detained as leverage in the business dispute between the bank and CME, and have not been informed of a criminal charge, despite more than two months of detention.
The complaint is understood to describe the case as a “textbook arbitrary detention and flagrant violation of international law”. It alleges violations of the right to consular assistance, torture and ill treatment, the obtaining of statements under duress, the denial of the right to legal counsel, and the denial of the right to be brought promptly before a judge, among other things.
Pether’s case has been repeatedly raised in parliament in Ireland, where his family live. Senator Eugene Murphy urged Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, to intervene, and said the arrest had “devastated the family” and “stunned the engineering and construction community”.
Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, last month said she had written to her Iraqi counterpart and followed up the letter with a conversation.
No further updates have been given and Pether’s wife, Desree, is furious at the Australian government’s response. She said it paled in comparison to the efforts of Egypt and Ireland.
“The Egyptian embassy is doing a lot, last week and this week, to really try and move it in the right direction. Their prime minister is there at the moment and their minister for foreign affairs came over to meet with Iraqi officials. It’s been mentioned in the Egyptian parliament,” she said.
“It’s been mentioned three times in the Irish parliament, and yet [it’s] crickets, crickets from the Australian government.”
Pether is being held in a 14-foot cell with 22 other inmates, according to Desree.
A ruling on an appeal seeking to have the case transferred to civil courts is expected imminently.
The Central Bank of Iraq’s new headquarters was designed by the late Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid as a symbol of the new Iraq.