60 Minutes abduction mum
60 Minutes child-abduction mum
Sally Faulkner gives a touching insighth into everything she’s got to lose
This Brisbane mum only ever wanted one thing: to be a good parent to her young family. But Sally Faulkner – who’s become a household name since she joined forces with Nine’s 60 Minutes to get her kids back from her estranged husband, 32-yearold Ali Elamine – is now facing kidnapping charges.
Not only is Sally threatened with spending up to seven years in a Lebanese jail, she’s also been denied access to her beloved children, Lahela, six, and Noah, four, since the botched attempt in April this year.
“I’ll continue to try my best to be that same mum, even if the world tries to stop me,” she says stoically. “Parental alienation is a daily grief. You live with it every second.”
After she and Ali separated, Sally agreed to allow Lahela and Noah to visit their dad’s family in Lebanon in May 2015. But when Ali refused to return the children to Queensland and the Australian government failed to intervene on her behalf, Sally worked with the 60 Minutes team and child recovery agent Adam Whittington on an attempt to snatch her kids from a Beirut bus stop.
Lebanese police traced Sally and the kids to their safe house, seized the children and threw Sally, Adam and the 60 Minutes crew in jail. Thankfully, after two weeks, the television network struck a deal so that Sally and the crew could return home.
Forever on her mind
The devoted mum, who says she “relished” being pregnant because she was the “closest to my baby out of everyone,” has now been left to rely on only memories of her children.
“I thought of your smiles, how you felt to cuddle and the way your hair smelt. The things mums think about and never want to forget,” she posted next to an image on Instagram.
She also recalled her favourite times with her two youngsters: playing in the mud, “afternoon chats and mini putt-putt”, and “hearing their little discussions” as the brother and sister sat side by side reading picture books – moments she may never get to experience again.
Sally’s future may be hanging in the balance, but there is one thing that is indisputable for her. “My children will always be my world,” she says.