BAGHDAD: 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 Friday, 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.

Robert Pether has been imprisoned for four years, in what the UN has described as arbitrary detention.

BAGHDAD: 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,…