Ex-Met officer faces jail over child abduction recovery plot

A FORMER Scotland Yard detective along with a mother and an Australian television crew have been arrested in Lebanon and are facing up to 20 years in jail on charges of attempted kidnapping of two children.

Adam Whittington, of dual British and Australian nationality, who has worked with the Metropolitan Police, is accused of masterminding the operation to seize two children of Australian Sally Faulkner from their Lebanese father Ali El Amine.

Mr Whittington, Ms Faulkner and others, including an Australian Channel Nine 60 Minutes TV crew, have been detained in Beirut since last Wednesday, after authorities intervened in their attempt to take the mother’s two children back to Australia.

On Tuesday, Mount Lebanon’s Attorney General, Claude Karam, filed charges against Australian and Lebanese suspects and referred the case to an investigating magistrate, the Lebanese National News agency reported. The prosecutor general will examine the case and is likely to issue indictments in preparation for a trial.

The Australian crew were reportedly in Lebanon to film the recovery of the children, aged four and six, who Ms Faulkner says were taken to Lebanon on holiday by their father but never returned.

Mr Amine claims Ms Faulkner and Australian security agencies knew he was leaving Australia with the children.

According to a statement from Channel Nine, “it will be some days before the TV crew are interviewed by the judge which will be their first chance to defend the charges”.

Mr Whittington, who runs Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI), has faced arrest. In 2014, he spent 16 weeks in a Singapore prison after attempting to snatch a two-year-old boy on behalf of his London-based mother.

Channel Nine has refused to say whether it paid CARI to recover the children for Ms Faulkner.