60 Minutes’ Tara Brown unruffled despite tumult in Beirut

Tara Brown plays down photos of her in handcuffs while joking that she does not have a hairbrush in her Beirut prison cell.

Police escort Australian Sally Faulkner, the mother of the al-Amin children, and Australian reporter Tara Brown, to Lebanon's Baabda Prison for women, after their trial was adjourned, Lebanon April 18, 2016. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Nine’s 60 Minutes star Tara Brown has joked she does not have a hairbrush in her prison cell, while trying to make light of the melee outside a Beirut courthouse during which she was photographed in handcuffs and being forcefully pushed into a car.

“It looked much worse than it was,” she told The Australian yesterday from inside the Baabda women’s prison. She scoffed at reports she had a blow-wave before the court appearance.

“I don’t even have my hairbrush in here,” she said. “Did they seriously think we have some sort of beauty salon here?”

While Brown said she was “being treated extremely well and the other women here are incredibly generous and kind”, her male colleagues from 60 Minutes ­appear to be doing it tougher.

The Australian last night witnessed David Ballment, Ben Williamson and Stephen Rice being brought into the detention centre waiting room under the courthouse. All three appeared fatigued and unshaven; Rice looked very pale and the others, shackled together, were grim-faced.

The men share a cell with the chief kidnap planner Adam Whittington. The cell is designed for one person, is just 3m x 2m, has one blocked toilet, no window or sunlight and is extremely hot.

Their ongoing incarceration comes amid claims that the ex-partner of Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner, Ali Elamine, is holding parties to ransom by waiting for a financial settlement.

“He is waiting for money,” Ms Faulkner’s lawyer, Ghassan ­Moghabghab, said. “Everything Ali is doing leads to one conclusion, that he is aiming for money.”

In a separate prison interview yesterday, Ms Faulkner revealed the courthouse melee was triggered in a bid to stop photographers from getting a clear picture of Brown.

She revealed the emotion of the incident, which erupted outside the Baabda Palace of Justice, was released with nervous giggles as the pair drove away from the scene.

“We were laughing in the car, all we wanted to do was not get her photo taken,” Faulkner said

Brown, wearing a favourite white-and-blue striped T-shirt during her interview with The Australian, was reluctant to discuss the case but said of the incident: “They were trying to protect me from the cameras, it might have been easier for me to turn my head.”

“Please explain I cannot talk, I don’t want to jeopardise ­anything,’’ she said. “It has been fortifying to get messages of support, support from my family, friends and colleagues.”

Brown and Ms Faulkner have been put in different cells but can still see and talk to each other.

Both appeared drawn and tired after expectations had been raised their case would be heard, and bail would be applied for, only to have it adjourned for 48 hours.

It is two weeks since the April 6 failed kidnapping at a southern Beirut bus stop and any developments in negotiations to lessen or drop the charges will be critical.

At one point, Ms Faulkner was distressed when she learned her husband had publicly said the children were missing their mother. She said she wanted to talk to him to work out a deal directly, rather than the influences he may be under from his mother, Ibtissma Berri, and the family.

In an emotional appeal to Mr Elamine, she said: “I just want to go home and take my kids. I am not taking them away from their dad, I don’t want to do what he did, and I want him to be part of the kids’ lives.”

She added: “I am not spiteful, I acted out of desperation.”

Of her children Lahela, 5, and Noah, 3, she said: “They have had the best of us, now they have the worst of us.”

Ms Faulkner said she had trusted Mr Elamine and did not believe he acted to keep the kids without other family influences.

“No one can act so well as he did and do a 180-degree turn the very next day. Definitely his mother doesn’t like me, but how can they be so selfish? She should have nothing to do with it.”

Mrs Berri, who is well connected in Lebanese society and has strong political connections, was assaulted during the botched raid on April 6 and has a hospital certificate to rest for 21 days.

She has laid charges against the 10 people charged and it is understood the family has asked for financial compensation in the millions of US dollars rather than the usual tens of thousands.