An Australian woman and television crew charged with kidnapping her children from their father in Beirut were set to be released on Wednesday, a judge said, after an out-of-court settlement was reached between the sides.
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An Australian mother and television crew held for two weeks in a Beirut jail after filming the “recovery” of her two children in an worldwide custody tussle have been released after the crew’s TV channel was said to have paid £1.6 million. “I don’t think they thought it through partly because they’ve been able to get away these sorts of practices for so long”, he told the BBC news website.
Speaking to Kyle and Jackie O Thursday morning on KIIS 106.5, Mr Elamine said he eventually agreed.
“He (Mr Berri) had nothing at all to do with this, he did not play a role”, he said.
They were released Wednesday after the father, Ali al-Amin, dropped attempted kidnapping charges against his estranged wife and the Channel 9 TV crew.
Two Britons and two Lebanese nationals who were allegedly planning to help smuggle the children out of the country via boat remain in prison.
If the charges were not dropped, Faulkner and the crew would have had to return to Lebanon to stand trial, after posting bail, according to Judge Rami Abdullah.
Others detained in the case were still behind bars. Her client also carried out the pre-runs for Mr Whittington in the days before the abduction.
The lawyer acting for the Nine Network, Kamal Aboudaher, on Monday said the broadcaster hadn’t offered any financial compensation to Elamine.
Their lawyer said their outcomes should be tied to the fate of the Channel 9 crew.
But when asked why Nine had not included the four members of CARI in the deal, she said: “They are not part of our team, they have their own legal advice and process to go through, we were journalists covering a story of an Australian mother trying to be reunited with her children”.
The children were returned to their father after Faulkner was arrested.
Mr Whittington’s lawyer Joe Karam told reporters that, while the Nine crew had walked free, this did not mean they had been exonerated.
She was reportedly working with a child recovery agency to take them back to Australia and Channel Nine were planning to film the operation. Security camera footage showed assailants knocking the grandmother to the ground before driving off with the children.
But the head of the child recovery team, Adam Whittington, remains behind bars and documents have emerged that appear to back his claims that Nine paid him directly to retrieve Ms Faulkner’s children.
You should know that the crew has asked me to thank the officials in Lebanon who were involved in their detention for their professionalism and for treating them with dignity and respect.
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He also said he was inclined to empathize with the Australian crew, especially the technicians, after meeting them in the courthouse, where he learned that at least one of them, Benjamin Williamson, was also a father.
