Mom held for ‘abducting’ her own kids in Lebanon
Print Edition
LEBANESE authorities yesterday detained an Australian woman for allegedly abducting her two children, and the Australian television crew accused of assisting her.
The crew were filming an operation by a child recovery agency involving two young children from Australia who were in Beirut with their Lebanese father. The youngsters disappeared on Wednesday while waiting for their school bus.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces said in a statement that they had detained the Australian mother who was with her two children in Beirut.
“The woman and her two children are in ISF custody after being located in a home in Beirut 24 hours after their kidnapping,” said a source from Lebanon’s interior ministry.
The ISF detained the four-person television crew from Channel Nine’s “60 Minutes” program earlier yesterday.
The mother, identified by Australian media as Sally Faulkner, said their Lebanese father took the children for a holiday and then allegedly refused to return them to Australia.
“The woman made an agreement with the 60 Minutes program from Channel Nine to come help her recover her children,” said a security source.
The person said the children had been taken while with their grandmother and there was a plan for them to be removed from Lebanon by boat.
A grainy video of the incident released by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed television showed the children walking with an older figure, reportedly their grandmother.
In the footage, several figures are seen jumping out of a car and carrying the children into the vehicle, which then speeds off.
Channel Nine said the crew had been unreachable for 15 hours but were later tracked down to a Beirut police station and put in contact with Australian consular officials.
“It is a relief to know that Australian officials are about to speak to them,” a network spokesman told the channel’s evening news bulletin. “The crew knew that this was a risk, going to do this story.”
Australian media named two of those held as reporter Tara Brown and producer Steven Rice.
It is the second time an Australian television crew has been detained overseas in recent weeks after two Australian Broadcasting Corp journalists were held in Malaysia for trying to question Prime Minister Najib Razak about multiple scandals swirling around him.
They were soon released and deported.
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