Negotiations between Sally Faulkner and estranged husband have stopped, her lawyer says
AS talks between the parents at the centre of the 60 minutes child kidnapping case break down, the lawyer for the father says his client is not seeking money from Channel Nine.
National
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THE estranged husband of Australian mum Sally Faulkner who attempted to snatch her children off a Beirut street has denied he is seeking compensation from her and the Nine Network, widely suspected of having indirectly funded the “rescue”.
Ali Elamine is expected to indicate whether he will formally drop his prosecution of his wife and through her a Channel 9 TV news crew for their botched kidnap attempt.
Judge Rami Abdullah and lawyers for the other parties have been trying to persuade Mr Elamine and his mother Ibtissam Berri who are listed as the complainants in the case.
Speaking outside court ahead of the recommencement of the case today, adjourned since last Thursday, Mr Elamine’s lawyer Hussein Berjawi said no deal had been formalised but his client was not holding out for compensation from Nine or his estranged wife.
“Ali is from a family that is at ease financially,” Mr Berjawi said.
“Even if they offer $300,000 it is not of significance to him. They are very well off.”
Mr Berjawi revealed what had been preying on the mind of the family, related to the Lebanese Parliament’s Speaker Nabih Berri, was what could have been when three men dragged toddlers Lahala and Noah from notorious Hezbollah controlled district of Dahieh into a van in a bid to spirit them back to Australia.
Mrs Berri was hit on the head in the melee and a hospital report states she would need three weeks recovery; she has undergone two head scans.
“They (children snatch crew) came to a region secured by Hezbollah,” Mr Berjawi said.
“Twenty metres away two years ago there was an assassination of a senior Hezbollah official the ‘martyr of the resistance’ Hussein Allakkis, a high-ranking official. So the odds were very high for some security officer to react to the kidnapping and maybe shoot at the unfamiliar car. What would have been the consequences then?”
On whether the Australians had learnt their lesson after more than 10 days in jail he replied: “It is up to Ali, he decides if 10 days are enough to drop the charges”.
Even if he did drop his prosecution, Judge Abdullah has already said the State of Lebanon had to pursue some form of charging because a crime had been committed.
The judge is expected to call for all the detainees including high-profile Channel 9 reporter Tara Brown to be delivered to the Baabda Palace of Justice to be formally told whether they will remain in jail ahead of a full court hearing today.
Nine defendants have been in custody since April 6 with recommendations they be charged with kidnapping and criminal association after attempting to snatch Ms Faulkner’s children from a Beirut street amid a bitter transnational custody battle.
It had been hoped intense negotiations between Aussie mum Sally Faulkner and her estranged husband would see him drop his pursuing of charges thereby reducing all the charges on the others to lesser offences and possible early release.
But after initial meetings the talks have stopped and now parties are unlikely to even request release. Further, the detainees appear to be turning on each other with lawyers accusing others of manipulating the facts.
Ms Faulkner’s lawyer Ghassan Mogabgab said today: “We did not file for her release yet because the investigation is ongoing. We would have presented a demand for her release if we would have reached an agreement with Elamine. But unfortunately the negotiations with Ali’s lawyer have stopped and I don’t know why? They started the first day and it was very positive and then the second day it was negative. I don’t know if they stopped it because there is a deal being done with the TV crew?”
He said reports Mr Elamine was financially supporting his wife while she was in jail was not entirely correct.
“I met with Sally today and asked her and she told me he just gave her 50,000 Lebanese liras (around 34 American dollars) the first day in detention, that was it,” he said.
“When the kids were with her he was supposed to pay her 1600 dollars a month and when he took the children on vacation to Lebanon he did not return them and stopped paying. So why is he saying he is paying her even when she is in jail?”
Mr Elamine also confirmed negotiations had broken down but wouldn’t offer why.
“There are no negotiations … there is no agreement with anybody,” his lawyer Hussein Barjawi said.
Judge Abdullah has already declared, as the investigative judge tasked with moving the case to the next level of indictment or dismissing it outright, that he was satisfied under Lebanese law a crime had been committed and he was not prepared to drop any charges.
When asked if he hoped mediation between Ms Faulkner and Mr Elamine could progress today he said “inshallah” (if God’s willing).
When asked specifically if mother Ms Faulkner could expect to do any jail time he said: “I can’t answer you.”
The case is already expected to be delayed with another case listed before it. It has already been delayed a couple of times last week, notably with Judge Abdullah called on to make a judgment on a complex case running since 2010 related to a telecommunications tower set up to bring communications in from Turkey without the knowledge of the Lebanese government.
Judicial insiders said even if a deal had been done between Mr Faulkner and Mr Elamine and charges reduced, the case was still listed to run for several days of pre-hearing discussions. Even after that stage if a recommendation is made that fines replace jail time for at least the Australian news crew and Ms Faulkner, it would be days if not weeks before the prisoners are released.
The sticking point at this stage is Ms Faulkner’s desire to negotiate a position whereby the children live in Lebanon but travel to Australia for holidays. It was such a decision in reverse that saw the children holidaying in Lebanon and their father Skyping his estranged wife to say they would not be returning. Mr Elamine fears she could do the same to him in future.
Critical to Judge Abdullah’s decision is whether a mother can actually be charged with kidnapping her own children. He also has to take into consideration she had custody granted by Australian courts although as Lebanon was not a signature to Hague conventions it was a point to note but could not override or be considered under Lebanese law.
“After hearing the judge at the end of the day I felt as if he was insisting that the incident was definitely a case of kidnapping and therefore the crew and the gang are going to stay for longer than expected,” one lawyer close to the case said.
“Plus lawyers will present a petition for Tara’s release as well as her crew members and that process will take days to be accepted or rejected.”
That scenario will not bode well for the detainees who have been in prison now since last Wednesday and Thursday when they were rounded up by Lebanon’s internal security forces.
Originally published as Negotiations between Sally Faulkner and estranged husband have stopped, her lawyer says
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