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Robert Pether has stressed his innocence and recalled his brush with death in his first comments since the Australian engineer departed Iraq after serving more than five years in jail.

Pether and his Egyptian colleague Khalid Radwan were detained in Baghdad in 2021 after flying in for a meeting with bank officials to resolve a dispute with his engineering firm, CME Consulting.

We were innocent when we were taken on the 7th of April 2021, and we remain innocent today.

I was released from prison hours away from death. My body was shutting down after months of critical illness and excruciating pain, but I remained trapped in Iraq.

She is an incredible person, someone that I have so much respect for, and being able to come home was incredible. Just the emotion that it brings is, you can’t describe it. I mean, it’s been years.