Following his return to Ireland from Iraq where he was held for five years, Robert Pether has thanked his family for their continued support during this time.
Mr Pether was a construction engineer, working in the country for a company called CME Consulting, when he was arrested in April 2021, along with his colleague, Khalid Radwan from Egypt. They were were detained over a contract row between the consulting firm that they worked for and the Central Bank of Iraq.
However, the UN later ruled that Mr Penther's detention was illegal, with an international court ruling that his employer was not responsible for the business disagreement.
He was released unconditionally on bail last year, but was still banned from leaving the country, before he was eventually allowed to leave after two travel bans preventing him from leaving Iraq were cancelled, which did require him to signing a waiver.
At 9.45am this morning, Robert Pether landed at Dublin Airport, where he was greeted by his wife, Desree and their children, according to reports in RTÉ.
"Today is about getting home and seeing most of my family and being a husband and a Dad again", Pether said following his arrival. "And it is about saying thank you".
Mr Penther also thanked the Australian, Irish and Egyptian governments for helping to secure his safe return home.
"Fom my wife and from our children: thank you to every person who stood beside us, spoke for us, fought for us, checked on us, supported our children, challenged what was happening, or simply refused to let us disappear", he said. "I don't think there are words big enough for what you have done for us".
Mr Penther said that despite not having an Irish passport, there are people in Ireland that "saw a family in desperate trouble and decided to help because it was the right and humane thing to do".
Mr Pether was unsure if he could find the right words in order to "properly express what this moment means", saying that he was "really overwhelmed".
Reflecting on his time abroad, Mr Pether said that he had travelled to work in Iraq to "help a war-torn country rebuild" but "never came home".
He went on to talk about the clear injustice that he had suffered, as "coming home today should never be mistaken for that injustice somehow having been corrected".
"We were innocent when we were taken on 7th of April 2021, and we remain innocent today", he added.
Mr Pether continued: "I didn't have my passport, visa or identity documents, and I had no ability to move around freely or safely, leave the country or even go to a hospital".
"Travel bans prevented me from returning to my family and from accessing the medical treatment I desperately needed outside Iraq.
"Coming home is not exoneration and being allowed to leave is not justice".
He explained how he signed the waiver as he just "wanted to go home".
"I signed it because I wanted to go home. There was no choice", he revealed. "After more than five years, with my health deteriorating and my family waiting for me, there was no meaningful choice between signing a document and remaining trapped in Iraq".
Mr Pether said that while he is relieved to be home, "it does not erase what happened to me for even one second".
Beginning his next three sentences with a very important word, "justice", Mr Pether said: "Justice would have been not trapping and taking us in the first place. Justice would have been accepting and recognising the evidence, respecting our rights and allowing us to return to our families. Justice would have been ending this when the United Nations found our detention arbitrary".
"And at the absolute minimum, justice would have meant that when the sentence imposed on me expired, I was free to leave. None of those things happened", he added.
Robert's wife, Desree spoke to RTÉ Radio, where she described the last five and a half years as "abominable", and that she and the children are feeling number, as her husband's return was on and off for the last month.
On her husband, she said: "He’s very emotional. He thought he was going to be more cool, calm and collected but actually he is a lot more emotional than he thought he was going to be. It’s going to be a hard journey for him".
She went on to say that Robert will require urgent medical care, but hopes that these issues will be "nothing too serious".
She also thanked the Irish Government for their role in Robert's case, along with the governments of Australia and Egypt.
"They [Irish Government] did it because it was the right thing to do as he is a father and husband to an Irish family", she said.
Mrs Pether said that Robert's colleague, Mr Radwan left Iraq earlier, sending a photo of himself on the plane, and that she soon became emotional as she knew Robert was only a few hours away from coming home.
Both the Taoiseach Michael Martin and Minister for Foreign Affaires, Helen McEntee reacted to this news, with Ms McEntee saying that Mr Penther's return to Ireland "brings to an end an extraordinarily difficult period for Robert, his wife Desree and their children".
She also thanked the Australian Government and both the Iraqi Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for their hard work and approach of the Irish Government for liaising on his release. (All quotes in this piece according to RTÉ).
https://t.co/tUUEwAUjHf
— Helen McEntee TD (@HMcEntee) October 12, 2026
I warmly welcome the news that Robert Pether is on his way home.
This will come as a great relief to Robert’s family here in Ireland. https://t.co/UXxO8MU0Eq
— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) October 12, 2026
