Dubai: The wife of an Australian engineer who claims her husband was "maliciously prosecuted" and "unlawfully imprisoned" in Iraq in 2021 has re-expressed her demand for his release in light of an international tribunal's ruling.

According to The Guardian on Saturday, engineer Robert Pether and his colleague Khalid Radwan were detained in April 2021 due to a legal dispute involving their employer, Cardno ME, and the Central Bank of Iraq.

The Central Bank employed the company's services to build its Baghdad headquarters, but their contractual relationship ended in 2020 as a result of the bank's request to modify the contract and seven months' worth of unpaid invoices.

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The International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce found the bank responsible for the contractual dispute and rendered a decision in CME's favour in February 2023.

The decision of the tribunal was recently made public, and following that, Perther's wife, Desree Pether, reportedly renewed her call for her husband's immediate release after serving more than two years in prison. She claimed that the choice has made the case for releasing Radwan and her husband stronger.

Although the Central Bank has known about it since February, she continued, "Robert and Khalid are still detained unlawfully, and the Central Bank has advised they are moving forward with the $50 million civil case against (them)."

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As a result, even though an international tribunal ruled in favour of CME, the malicious prosecution of two innocent employees continues, according to Perther's wife.

After the engineering company withdrew its employees, the pair was persuaded to return to Iraq in April 2021 under the guise of settling the conflict. Pether and Radwan were detained during a meeting with bank representatives on suspicion of defrauding the bank and were given a five-year prison sentence. They were also hit with a $12 million fine.

It was recently made public that the International Court of Arbitration had been notified of the dispute and the pair's arrest.

The bank was ordered to pay the engineering firm $13 million by the tribunal after being found in breach of its contractual obligations, according to its recently published judgement.

The tribunal determined that the sum was sufficient to pay the unpaid invoices, compensation, legal fees, and the release of a performance bond provided by CME.

The trial of the Australian engineer was "deeply compromised," and the two were imprisoned "arbitrary," according to a UN working group on arbitrary detention's report from last year.

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The working group demanded the men's immediate release, claiming that the men's detention violated international law and that "(Pether) was exposed to extreme cold, threats of death, humiliation and various forms of psychological abuse."

Pether has also claimed that a "confession" statement used against him was incorrectly translated by a biassed employee of the Iraqi Central Bank before being presented to a judge, according to Guardian Australia.