Irish citizen Yasser Eljuboori reunited with family in Dublin following detention in Iraq

Yasser Eljuboori landed at Dublin Airport this morning and has now been reunited with his family. Picture: Johnny Wickham/Doughty Street Chambers

Irish citizen Yasser Eljuboori, who was detained in Iraq last month, has been released and is now back in Ireland.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin confirmed on Wednesday that he had been released.

Mr Eljuboori, an anti-corruption activist, was detained in Iraq last month after charges were brought against him by senior Iraqi politicians, including the country's prime minister.

These charges were dropped earlier this week, but a second series of charges were brought forward in the following days.

However, he confirmed that Mr Eljuboori is now back at home with his family. 

He added that there had been some "hiccups" in securing his release, but Mr Eljuboori's passport was returned on Monday.

"It's great news and I'm really relieved," Mr Martin said on RTÉ Radio 1. 

In a statement, Mr Eljuboori's wife, Laura Wickham, confirmed that he has returned home.

"The past ten days have been a living nightmare for me, but most importantly for Yasser," Ms Wickham said.

"I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to support me and Yasser, and to bring him home to Dublin."

She thanked both the Tánaiste and the Department of Foreign Affairs for their work in returning Mr Eljuboori home. 

Yasser Eljuboori's wife, Laura Wickham, thanked both the Tánaiste and the Department of Foreign Affairs for their work in returning Mr Eljuboori home.

"I have had overwhelming support from every corner of the country. I think everyone I ever met in my life has contacted me to offer support and well wishes: people I know from every single stage of my life that I haven’t seen in years. It has meant so much and I will never forget it.

"And above all, to Yasser, I want to say that I am so happy he’s home with me and that this nightmare is over. I’ll never again take for granted the normal, everyday things: going for family walks, having TV time, playing with our kids on the ground.

"The kids are getting their dad back, and our house will have its life and soul again. Welcome home, Yasser.”

The Tánaiste explained that when the charges were dropped by the Prime Minister’s office, it then emerged that there were further charges from the mayor and the head of the investment authority.

“I want to thank the Iraqi foreign minister, who I spoke with last weekend, who had contacted the Prime Minister's office, and they rang again Sunday morning following the latest developments. And he intervened also there.

“So the result, he got his passport back on Monday morning. I want to thank our ambassador in Jordan, Marianne Bolger and the entire team there for the consular assistance and the team at headquarters who have worked with the family and obviously the legal teams working with the family.” 

When asked about the diplomatic challenge in getting Mr Eljuboori home to Ireland given his high profile as an anticorruption activist, Mr Martin said that the situation in Iraq was “much more complex than anything we experience.

“Because the danger would be that if it had gone into the prosecutorial process or if it had entered the courts and he was convicted under this Article 26, which seems a very wide-ranging article, that if you attack or criticise public officials, you can be held up and you could be criminalised for doing that, and then you have a lot of tribal approaches and families take these things personally. 

"So it could have been a very serious situation if it had gone through the court process and if he had been convicted of whatever. Because we know from other cases that it's extremely difficult once people are convicted to get people out of situations like that.”