Beirut: A Lebanese judge decided on Wednesday to release on bail an Australian woman and four journalists charged with abducting her two children from their Lebanese father in Beirut.
Sally Faulkner and a four-member Australian television crew were charged last week for reportedly abducting Faulkner’s two young children from their father, Ali Al Ameen.
“I have agreed to release the Australian crew and the mother on bail after the children’s father and grandmother dropped the personal charges against all five of them,” judge Ramy Abdallah said.
In a phone call, Al Ameen confirmed he had dropped the charge against Faulkner and the crew from Channel Nine’s “60 Minutes” programme.
His lawyer Hussain Berjawi said earlier that Faulkner’s bail had been set at 1,000,000 Lebanese pounds (approximately $660 or Dh2,422).
Faulkner and the Channel Nine crew are still facing charges by Lebanon’s public prosecutor, but they could be charged in absentia, Berjawi said.
According to Channel Nine’s chief correspondent Tom Steinfort in Beirut, the channel “is hoping to have the 60 Minutes crew on a flight out of Beirut tonight (Wednesday)”.
Al Ameen has not dropped his charges against two Britons and two Lebanese who allegedly helped in the abduction, Berjawi said.
Faulkner has said the children’s Lebanese father, from whom she is divorced, took them for a holiday to Beirut and then allegedly refused to return them to Australia.
She had reportedly been working with a child recovery agency to bring back the children, and the “60 Minutes” crew was recording the operation.
A grainy video of the April 6 incident released by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television showed the children walking with an elderly person, said to be their grandmother.
Several figures jump out of a nearby car and carry the children into the vehicle, which then speeds off.
The television crew was arrested the following day and Faulkner was later found with the two children at a home in Beirut.
Both children, who Australian media said are a six-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy, are now with their father in a southern Beirut suburb.