ISF Frees Siblings Abducted in Hadath, Detains Australian Mother, TV Crew
The Internal Security Forces said on Thursday that it has arrested four Australians suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of two siblings south of Beirut a day earlier after the Foreign Ministry in Canberra claimed the detainees were an Australian television crew.
The ISF said the four Australians were arrested by the Intelligence Branch on suspicion of involvement in the abduction of Lahala al-Amine, 6, and her four-year-old brother Nouh in Hadath.
Later on Thursday, the ISF Intelligence Branch was able to free the two children.
"The woman and her two children are in ISF custody after being located in a home in Beirut 24 hours after their kidnapping," a source from Lebanon's interior ministry told AFP.
Later in the day, the ISF said the freed toddlers were "handed over to their father, following an authorization from the relevant judicial authorities."
The mother of the two children, identified by Australian media as Sally Faulkner, has said their Lebanese father took them 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 from Lebanon," a security source told AFP.
The source 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.
Several figures jump out of a nearby car and carry the children into the vehicle, which then speeds off.
Channel Nine said that 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."
Earlier in the day, the TV crew's network said the Australians were detained in Lebanon after they filmed a private operation by a child recovery agency involving the children.
Australian media named those held as reporter Tara Brown, producer Steven Rice and one or two camera operators.
"The Australian mother called the children's father in Lebanon to tell him that she has both children with her," a Lebanese security source told AFP earlier on Thursday.
The ISF said on Wednesday that the two children were kidnapped in the area of al-Hadath for family reasons. It did not give further details.
According to the state-run National News Agency, three gunmen, who were riding a silver Hyundai, abducted Lahala and Nouh while they were waiting for their school bus with their grandmother on the Hadath-Shweifat road.
The kidnappers took away the children after hitting their grandma on the head, it said, adding that the abductors were filming the operation.
In a tearful interview last October, the mother told Daily Mail Australia, “It's literally like a living hell.”
She said she called and emailed her Lebanese husband daily and had attempted to take legal action.
As her money and resources dwindled, the woman asked for the Australian government to step in and also petitioned for Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop to help bring her children to Australia, the Daily Mail said.
“But when the government 'did nothing' to help her, Ms. Faulkner is believed to have contacted 60 Minutes who offered to pay for the recovery operation in return for filming it as a story,” the Daily Mail added.
Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet
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