The Channel Nine TV crew, including reporter Tara Brown, were among a group of people arrested after a botched attempt to take the children of Australian mother Sally Faulkner off the streets of the capital, Beirut.
Advertisement
In a change.org petition posted a year ago, Faulkner pleaded with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to intervene in the case.
Nine Network’s director of current affairs Darren Wick was at the court but said he was unable to comment on the proceedings.
“But we support Australians who find themselves in these difficulties and these circumstances right around the world and of course we’re doing that with respect to the 60 Minutes crew in Beirut at the moment”, he said.
Judge Rami Abdullah deferred the case until Monday.
Authorities returned the children to Al-Amin after the attempt to seize them.
A Lebanese court has charged an Australian mother and four Australian television journalists over the abduction of her two children in Beirut, a judicial source and official media said Tuesday.
Find out why Tara Brown and a film crew from 60 Minutes have been held by police in Lebanon.
Australia’s ambassador to Lebanon, Glenn Miles, met Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil yesterday to discuss the case, which is causing significant concern in both countries.
Mr Steinfort said each of the TV crew faced brief, five-minute questioning from the judge with reports from media on the ground that they were composed and well.
The Channel Nine crew and Brown were in Lebanon to report the story.
The nine have been in police custody since the failed attempt to snatch the children, six-year-old Lahela and four-year-old Noah, while they were on their way to school last week.
Faulkner is facing kidnapping charges.
Among those detained were Australian TV presenter Tara Brown and crew members Benjamin Williamson, David Ballment and Stephen Rice.
The incident has raised discussions among local Australian journalists about the ethics of the television crew, if indeed they did pay the child recovery team, for writing a cheque for “another juicy exclusive”, which has become a diplomatic incident.
But there’s hope there might be some legal relief if Faulkner and her estranged husband Lebanese-American Ali Elamine can reach an agreement that might allow some or all of alleged crimes to be dropped or downgraded. Faulkner accuses her former husband Ali al-Amin of taking them from Australia previous year without her permission.
Australian authorities have been Lebanese officials but have said will not intervene in the case.
“Lebanese law is different from Australian law, it’s based on the French system, so there is this investigative stage”.
“We think like the abductors and operate accordingly”, the website says. She said a cameraman was filming the scene from the vehicle.
Advertisement
The two British men have been named by Lebanese media as Craig Michael and Adam Whittington, supposedly from the child recovery agency Faulkner hired to go after her kids.
