Australian TV network chose ‘cheaper’ abduction option

A contractor said he negotiated with an Australian television network to snatch two Lebanese-Australian children from their father’s family in Beirut but the network chose a cheaper option.

Col Chapman, who describes himself as a child recovery specialist, said executives at the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes programme told him to “sharpen his pencil” when he quoted them A$150,000 (€101,000) late last year to get the children, Lahala, 6, and Noah, 4, out of Lebanon.

The children’s Australian mother, Sally Faulkner, a four-member crew from Nine, two British agents from the Britain-based Child Abduction Recovery International company (CARI), and two Lebanese men are in police custody in Beirut over a bungled attempt last week to smuggle the children out of the country.