Beirut: An Australian television crew has been detained in Lebanon for questioning over an alleged child abduction case, Lebanese officials said.
The crew were reportedly filming a private operation by a child recovery agency involving two young children from Australia who were in Lebanon with their father.
The two children disappeared on Wednesday while waiting for their school bus, Lebanese media reported.
Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces said four Australians had been detained.
“The Australian mother called the children’s father in Lebanon to tell him that she has both children with her. We don’t know where she is or where the children are,” a Lebanese security source told AFP.
The Brisbane mother of the children reportedly involved in the filming has said their Lebanese father took them for a holiday and then allegedly refused to return them to Australia, Fairfax Media reported.
“It seems that the crew is involved in the kidnapping,” Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq told journalists on Thursday as he headed for a cabinet meeting.
The Nine Network said that the crew, who had been working for the current affairs show “60 Minutes”, had been unreachable for 15 hours.
It said they were being held in a Beirut police station where they were now 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 Channel Nine’s evening news bulletin. “The crew knew that this was a risk, going to do this story.”
Australian media named those held as reporter Tara Brown, producer Steven Rice and one or two camera operators.
It is the second time an Australian television crew has been detained overseas in recent weeks after two Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalists were held in Malaysia on March 12 for trying to question Prime Minister Najib Razak about multiple scandals swirling around him.
They were soon released and deported.
