At least nine people, including a former UK-based detective turned “child recovery specialist”, an Australian TV network crew and an Australian woman accused of an attempted kidnapping of her two children, have been charged in Lebanon with crimes that carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and hard labour.
A Lebanese judicial source said that the suspects have been charged with “armed abduction, purveying threats and physical harm,” accusations that carry sentences of between seven and 20 years.
Investigative judge Rami Abdullah referred the case to the prosecutor general after he and Lebanese police questioned the suspects. The case will now be examined by the prosecutor general, who is likely to issue indictments in preparation for a trial.
Adam Whittington, a former Scotland Yard detective described by a UK court as a “mercenary”, is accused of leading the operation that allegedly saw the children snatched from a street in Beirut last week and briefly reunited with their mother, Sally Faulkner.
Whittington, Faulkner and five others, including a journalist from the Australian current affairs programme 60 Minutes, were arrested by Lebanese authorities after the alleged abduction. The children were later returned to their father.
Faulkner says the childre‘s Lebanese father, Ali al-Amin, took them for a holiday to the country last May and never returned – a claim that Amin disputes.
The 60 Minutes team, led by the reporter Tara Brown, were in Lebanon to document the recovery of the children but have not confirmed allegations that they covered Whittington's AU$115,000 (€77,300) fee.
Friends of Faulkner, who has another three-month-old child in Australia, spoke yesterday of her anguish at losing Lahala (six) and Noah (four).
Whittington was imprisoned in Singapore in 2014 after attempting to snatch a two-year-old boy caught in a custody dispute.
He also claims on his LinkedIn profile to have been the lead investigator hired by a family to investigate the disappearance of the murdered British woman Lucie Blackman in Japan in 2000.
Network Nine, which screens 60 Minutes, warned yesterday of "inaccurate or unreliable" reporting around the case.
Nine said the 60 Minutes crew were in Beirut to film and interview Faulkner after she was reunited with her children and have declined to confirm or deny that they paid for the child recovery process.
"We want to see our crew and Ms Faulkner return home safely as soon as possible and we are working with a respected Lebanese legal team in Beirut to secure this outcome," the spokeswoman said. – Guardian service