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I don't begrudge people for taking all steps to protect their children in the right circumstances. I read Jacqueline Pascarl's book about when she was married to the Malaysian prince and what steps he took to stop her seeing her own kids. As I mentioned before, the more corrupt a place is, the less chance a foreigner has any chance over a local with some sort of influence with the authorities. In circumstances where there is a real danger, parents have had to resort to kidnapping (happens more often than people probably think - remember there are multiple companies around the world offering these services). To be honest, I have no idea on the justification in this situation - but 60 minutes' involvement appears to have certainly made things worse.Alright, here's everything I could find on the story:
The mother was given custody of the children in Australia after a long legal battle between the mother and the father. The mother had custody for several years but the father was still looking to get custody back. The mother claims that the father came to Australia and asked if he could take the children on a holiday to Lebanon. The mother agreed, the father took the children to Lebanon then contacted the mother to let her know that he wouldn't be returning the children. The father then had the Lebanese courts confirm his custody of the children.
The mother made many attempts over a year long period to get lawyers to help recover the children but they all said they couldn't help as Lebanon is not part of the Hague convention. The mother raised a petition to ask the Australian government to help but the Australian government ignored the petition. The mother then went to 60 minutes who gave her money for the story and she used this money to hire a recovery team. The other side of this is that Lebanese officials are reporting that members of the recovery team stated that they received payment directly from 60 minutes. It appears that these members have been released after they made the statement. Read what you want into that.
There's two different reports of what happened next:
A) The father hacked the mother's email and saw all the correspondence on what she was planning. Due to this the authorities were able to stop the operation.
B) The mother called the father after the kidnapping to let him know that the kids were safe and the authorities used this call to trace their location
After this they were all arrested. Now due to a bit of dodgyness in the Lebanese judicial system, the Lebanese foreign minister is pushing to release them while ignoring the charges (apparently this happens often in Lebanon) as the foreign minister has good standing with Australia and doesn't want to cause international problems. The father also publicly stated that he does not want to press charges but reports are that he is still pressing charges. The cousin of mother of the father is the speaker of the house of representatives and they are using their standing in the political system to push for maximum penalty.
That's what is being reported. Obviously there is a lot of mixed reporting and he said/she said so it's hard to tell the total truth of it.
If the father just decided to not return the kids, that is extremely shit. He has preyed on the mother's goodwill by allowing them to visit him in Lebanon. Some of course will argue that she should have simply refused to let him take them out of the country in the first place, and they probably have some merit.
Parents using their kids as pawns make me sick (both mothers ans fathers of course).