60 Minutes kidnapping attempt could have been avoided: lawyer

THE botched kidnapping attempt of two Australian children could have been avoided had the father honoured “a gentlemen’s agreement”, a lawyer said.

THE bitter transnational custody case that led to a botched kidnapping of two Australian children off a Beirut street could have been avoided had a father honoured “a gentlemen’s agreement” and sent them home after a holiday a year ago.

That will be the argument of lawyer Joe Karam representing the head of the botched “child recovery” operation, former Australian soldier Adam Whittington, when the case returns to the courts in Beirut tomorrow.

And Mr Karam will claim his client was nowhere near the dramatic street snatch and was leisurely having breakfast on his motor cruiser in a Beirut marina when it went down and he was arrested.

Ten people including Whittington, Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner, a Channel 9 60 Minutes crewwho indirectly financed the recovery operation, including high-profile reporter Tara Brown, three locals and a Briton have been charged with kidnapping and “gang association” with criminal intent.

Lawyer Joe Karam is in Beirut representing Adam Whittington who is one of the detained members involved in the botched 60 Minutes "child retrieval operation". Picture: Ben Stevens/i-Images.

Mr Karam, who was yesterday at the Baabda courts working on his clients’ case said all the facts were not yet known but it was clear agreements were not respected particularly by the children’s Lebanese-born father Ali Elamine.

He also hinted there could be a “settlement” with an arrangement between Faulkner and Elamine come Monday morning that could bode well for his clients Whittington and Briton Craig Michael.

“There were different reasons why all of this happened,” Mr Karam told News Corp Australia.

“If this happened because Ali did something, probably something wrong, I don’t know the facts but it’s very important in family issues and family business, mediation is the top priority in the interest of the children.

“We at the Bar Association we created a mediation environment to promote to save children in such things. After the fight who will pay? The children, the children. My message to parents, these parents and others, save the children this is not the way they are doing it.

“Especially he promised her the kids he brought here would be brought back, there is a gentlemen’s agreement that should have been respected in family matters.”

Former Australian soldier Adam Whittington has been locked up over the foiled kidnapping scandal. Picture: Youtube.

The kids were sent by their mother to Lebanon last May to holiday with their father, whom she had already split with, last May but he told her via Skype they would not be returning home.

Mr Karam said 40-year-old dual Australian-British national Whittington was “absolutely not at the scene of the operation’’ and there were no guns involved.

He also disclosed that his 40-year-old client believed he had been set up and may have fallen victim of a trap set up by one of his rivals.

‘’He had nothing to do on the ground,’’ Karam said. “He wasn’t there, he wasn’t on the scene.’’

Mr Karam likened the case to the shock he felt in 1993 when working in the United States and seeing US President Bill Clinton oversee the shaking of hands between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for a peace accord on the lawns of the White House.

“They were killing each other but they shook hands, what the hell,” he said. “A child needs a mother and a father and the child is not a real estate to be divided. They (parents) have to reach a point.”

The case is expected back before the courts tomorrow from 5pm Australian time.