请实时关注今日新闻。罗伯特·佩瑟在首次发表言论时强调自己无罪，并回忆起自己与死神擦肩而过的那段经历。此前，这位澳大利亚工程师在伊拉克服刑五年多后已离开该国。
Follow the day’s news live 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.
2021年，佩瑟和他的埃及同事哈立德·拉德万在巴格达被拘留。当时他们飞抵当地，与银行官员会面，以解决其工程公司CME Consulting的纠纷。
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.
“2021年4月7日我们被捕时是无辜的，今天我们依然无罪。”
re innocent when we were taken on the 7th of April 2021, and we remain innocent today.
“我出狱时距离死亡仅数小时之遥。在经历了数月重病和剧痛之后，我的身体已经濒临崩溃，但我仍被困在伊拉克。”
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.
“她是一个不可思议的人，我非常尊敬她。能够回家真的令人难以置信。那种情绪根本无法用言语形容。毕竟，已经过去好几年了。”
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.
“我们现在处于中期阶段，下一次选举大约还有18个月。但我将对自己的未来做出决定……我在那里赢得了四次选举，并与许多当地社区成员保持着非常密切的关系。因此，这个地方对我来说意义非凡。我的孩子们在这里接受教育，我们如今也生活在这里。我想，对于您和您的听众来说，这并不令人意外——我认为这个地方目前所获得的代表程度，还远未达到应有的水平。”
We’re mid-term, the next election’s some 18 months away, but I’ll make a decision about my future … I won four elections there and have maintained a very close relationship with many of the local community. So it’s a place near and dear to my heart. It’s a place where my kids are educated. It’s a place where we live today. And it’s no surprise to you or to your listeners, I don’t think it’s as well represented as it needs to be.
“这里城市化程度更高，人口更年轻，教育水平也更高。而我们作为一个政党，在主导澳大利亚政治格局的大都市选区中仅占据少数席位。要重新执政，我们必须将这些选区重新夺回，这也是我们更广泛战略的一部分。”
It’s more urbanised, it’s younger, it’s more highly educated. And we, as a party, hold very few of the metropolitan seats which dominate the political landscape in Australia, and that’s what we need to win back as part of a broader strategy to get back to government.
