A 60 Minutes TV crew and Sally Faulkner have marked a week in detention with no end in sight after a Lebanese judge warned the group they had violated the law by attempting to kidnap the Brisbane mum’s two children off a Beirut street.
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“There’s some prospect that Sally might have her charges downgraded to a misdemeanour but the people from 60 Minutes and the child recovery service at face value seem to have been engaged in a commercial operation to abduct children and there appears to have been some act of violence involved”.
Nine has not commented on claims it paid $115,000 to a child recovery team, whose operators are also under arrest.
Investigative judge Rami Abdullah referred the case to the prosecutor general after he and Lebanese police questioned the suspects.
She claims he said he was taking them there for a holiday and never returned. Journalist Tara Brown, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound technician David Ballment have been detained in addition to Faulkner.
According to the Nine Network, the crew is facing charges including hiding information, forming an association of two or more people to commit crime against a person, kidnapping or holding a minor even with their approval, and physical assault.
Nine has hired a legal team in Beirut to represent its crew but it’s unknown whether Ms Faulkner has legal representation.
Mr al-Amin, 32, spoke to AAP outside court and said the children were being “sheltered from it all”.
ABC reported earlier today that a judge in Lebanon has been asked by prosecutors to investigate the charges which are punishable by a minimum of three years in jail.
The botched kidnapping attempt came on Wednesday morning as Al-Amin’s mother, Ibtisam Berri, was walking the pair’s five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son to school.
His professional Child Abduction Recovery International website says his operation has been “operating privately “under the radar” [out of the media eye] for over 15 years, until now”.
Nine has issued a statement on Tuesday, obtained by The Australian, as local media attention heightened around the case.
Both children, who Australian media said are a six-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy, are now with their father in a southern Beirut suburb.
‘These are all charges that will be strenuously denied by the 60 Minutes crew, ‘ Nine reporter Tom Steinfort said.
“The Foreign Minister has maintained discussions with her counterpart Minister (Gebran) Bassil regarding this case”, the spokeswoman said. It also said government officials and a Lebanese legal team are working with the company to return those involved safely back to Australia.
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“The Minister doesn’t want this to affect Lebanon-Australia relations”.
