BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq has released an Australian mechanical engineer and his Egyptian colleague who were detained for more than four years over a dispute with the central bank, authorities said, though the two remain barred from leaving the country. Robert Pether and Khalid Radwan were working for an engineering company contracted to oversee the construction of the bank’s new Baghdad headquarters, according to a United Nations report, when they were arrested in April 2021.

A report from a working group for the UN Human Rights Council said the arrests stemmed from a contractual dispute over “alleged failure to execute certain payments.” Both men were sentenced to five years in prison and fined $12 million, the working group said.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Pether, in his fifties, was released “due to his poor health.”

Australian media have previously reported that the family suspected Pether had developed lung cancer in prison and that he had undergone surgery for skin cancer.