This was published 7 years ago
60 Minutes: Adam Whittington denied bail in failed Lebanese child kidnapping plot
By Suzan Haidamous and Latika Bourke
The Australian man and his three associates jailed in Lebanon over the 60 Minutes failed kidnapping plot has been denied bail.
Investigative Judge Rami Abdullah told reporters at Beirut's Palace of Justice that he had rejected an application for bail for Australian man Adam Whittington, his child-retrieval associate Craig Michael and two Lebanese men hired to help with logistics. He will now hand the case over to the general prosecutor Claude Karam.
Adam Whittington was refused bail over the botched child kidnapping in Beirut in April.Credit: Youtube: CARI via SMH
Lawyer Sahar Mouhsen is representing one of the jailed Lebanese men, Mohamad Hamza, and said the case could now take months to conclude as it was tied to the fate of Whittington's legal outcome.
Whittington, a former Australian soldier and dual British national, is accused of orchestrating the child-abduction plot on behalf of Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner, whose estranged husband never returned to Australia their two children after they visited him in Lebanon for a holiday in 2015.
Adam Whittington's father David protested outside the Channel 9 headquarters in Sydney this week.Credit: AAP
A bank receipt shows the Nine Network paid for the plot which backfired spectacularly when the team were arrested on April 6 and 7.
Nine paid a huge sum of money to father Ali Elamine to secure the freedom of the television crew and Ms Faulkner after two weeks in detention but abandoned Mr Whittington, Michael and two Lebanese fixers.
The four have remained in jail in Beirut for five weeks. On Tuesday, Whittington and Michael were moved to a jail in Tripoli in North Lebanon at their request.
"He needed fresh air after being held underground in unhealthy circumstances," the pair's Lebanese lawyer Joe Karam told Fairfax Media.
Sally Faulker with her children, Lahela and Noah.
However, a security guard at Baabda Court House said the pair were being moved because the jails in Beirut were full.
Mr Karam has accused Nine of lacking morality by abandoning the four they hired to carry out their plot once the operation went sour.
On Sky News on Wednesday night, Whittington's father David Whittington said the attempted recovery was "doomed from the start" because of the Nine Network's involvement.
He said he was "devastated" his son remained in jail, and described how Adam's debts grew by more than $2000 each day.
"Because of the length of time that he's been there, I'm devastated more than when he first got detained," Mr Whittington told Paul Murray. "I wasn't aware it was going to be this long.
"His legal fees are over $150,000 and climbing. The launch [boat] that was meant to recover Channel Nine's crew and everybody out of Lebanon back to Cyprus, that was hired at $2000 a day and that's rolled on for 43 days."
Mr Whittington said he and his son had both been confident the Lebanese court system would grant bail. He accused the father of the children who were snatched of "digging his heels in" to wait for cash, claiming if he was able to pay Mr Elamine $US500,000, Adam would have been out "weeks ago".
"Channel Nine's set the precedent of 500 [thousand dollars] US, that's $680,000... Australian at this moment," Mr Whittington said.
"Because they've set that, and they've put the open chequebook on the table, that's the precedent. He [Elamine] won't budge."
- with Georgina Mitchell