Aussie mom, TV crew to be charged in Lebanon abduction case

An Australian woman arrested in Beirut last week for allegedly abducting her two young children from her ex-husband is “being treated right” by Lebanese authorities, her current partner said Monday.

The woman, Sally Faulkner, came to Lebanon recently to try to regain custody of her children — 4-year-old Noah and 6-year-old Lahela — nearly two years after separating from her Lebanese ex-husband Ali al-Amin.

On Thursday, Lebanese authorities detained Faulkner and four Australian members of a News Nine Network TV crew, along with two British and two Lebanese citizens, on suspicion they were involved in the abduction, police said in a statement.

Brendan Pierce, Falkner’s current partner, told the Guardian Monday the Brisbane-area family was coping with the situation.

“Everyone in the family is doing well. Sally is being treated right,” Pierce said, according to the report. “She is being treated right, I can confirm that but I want to leave it there.”

His remarks came on the heels of reports in Lebanon’s Daily Star on Monday that said two of the nine people arrested had been released from custody, and the remaining seven would be charged in a hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon. The report did not indicate what the charges would be.

Lebanon set to charge Australian mum Sally Faulkner, 60 Minutes crew over kidnap https://t.co/k2qYeYzRYj pic.twitter.com/9ZKsFhf6wi

— Stuff (@NZStuff) April 10, 2016

According to reports in Australian media, Faulkner has said her ex-husband took their two children for a vacation in Lebanon and then refused to return them to Australia.

Noah and Lahela disappeared last Wednesday while waiting for their schoolbus with their grandmother.

A grainy video of the incident released by Lebanon’s Al-Jadeed television showed the children walking with an older figure, when several figures jump out of a nearby car and carry the children into the vehicle, which then speeds off.

“The woman made an agreement with the ’60 Minutes’ program from Channel Nine to come help her recover her children from Lebanon,” a Lebanese security source told AFP. He said there was a plan for them to be removed from Lebanon by boat.

Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces arrested Faulkner in Beirut several hours later and said in a statement the children were “handed to their father, based to a judicial order.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY5Wc1oBV8A

Channel Nine said its 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.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement that the pair have been “offered all appropriate consular assistance.”

It is the second time an Australian television crew has been detained overseas in recent weeks. Two Australian Broadcasting Corporation 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.