Home at last …as payments revealed
60 Minutes crew land in Sydney, as evidence emerges Nine paid for the abduction.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News, Top Stories
The 60 Minutes crew arrived in Sydney last night, touching down to a frenzied media pack and headlines about Nine payments changing hands.
Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment landed after 10pm, flying business class with Emirates from Lebanon via Dubai.
There were only brief responses as they made their way through a side exit to awaiting vans.
Media stories claim TCN9’s ANZ bank account paid $69,000 to “IPCA Limited” in Stockholm, Sweden, on January 22. according to a bank statement, with the instruction “Investigation into my missing child.”
The company belongs to Adam Whittington who runs Child Abduction Recovery International.
A local source has also suggested Nine had made a mistake, paying the money into Sally Faulkner’s nominated account without realising it was Adam Whittington’s CARI firm.
A second bank transfer is also believed to have been made, with the total rising to at least $115,000.
News Corp also reports Nine paid $500,000 to Ali Elamine to drop the charges after he rejected an offer of $350,000. Yesterday it was reporting a “multi-million dollar deal.”
Ali Elamine has rejected suggestions he will receive any payment, telling The Project, “I’ve been hearing more than $3 million, I’ve heard $10 million at one point.
“Yeah, no, I didn’t communicate any money, I don’t communicate… I didn’t sign on any money, none of that happened,” he said.
Asked specifically if anyone else received money on his behalf he said, “I can’t comment on that. If anyone around me or someone ….. The way I looked at it from a political side it was more …. I think the Australian government pushed hard for the release of the Channel Nine crew … and I think the Lebanese judge saw it as….you know, I should drop the personal charges just because they weren’t involved.
“Again, I have no idea. My lawyer, or myself, never communicated anything in regard to that.”
He also said his deal included that Nine could not ever use the footage of his children it had obtained or use their names.
Nine is not commenting on payments after CEO Hugh Marks announced an internal review.
Adam Whittington and Craig Michael from Child Abduction Recovery International and two Lebanese men remained behind bars.
Lawyer, Joe Karam, criticised Nine leaving the CARI team behind in Lebanon.
“It is not appropriate for Channel Nine to arrange a deal and not include the men they asked to execute it,” he said.
Earlier Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner visited a Beirut court, spending time with her children later in the presence of Australian embassy officials.
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12 Responses
Nine’s behaviour in all of this is highly questionable. They’ve taken sides in a child custody dispute when it isn’t black and white which parent is “in the wrong”.
They’ve paid, perhaps inadvertently, money to someone to kidnap two children who weren’t in harm’s way, breaking several Lebanese laws and without any consideration of the father’s rights.
Then they’ve paid another bunch of cash to get the 60 Minutes crew back whilst leaving the people that they paid to create the hopefully ratings-buster footage, to their fate in gaol. I’m aware that DFAT have had a hand in this and that the CARI guys travelled on British passports but it’s not a good look for Nine.
Now they’ll bunker down and hope that we’ve all moved on when they finally finish their internal review.
Well said, totally agree.
Why do they need a stupid review. They have just clearly stuffed up so why can’t they just admit that and move on. Simple.
A “review” that will take six months. It could all be “reviewed” in six minutes at a meeting of all concerned. And is the ANZ document genuine? “No, it’s a fake”, we do not hear Nine screaming. Just silence. “Qui tacet consentit”: the maxim of the law is “Silence gives consent”. If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented”. – Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons.
The maxim is “Qui tacet consentit”: the maxim of the law is “Silence gives consent”. If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented.
— Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons[1]
This whole saga gets murkier with every development. It will make an excellent mini series; except it will be so embroiled with libel or something. I can see Asher Keddie playing Tara and Sarah Snook playing Sally.
I remember saying (when the payment issue was first raised): if Nine refuses to confirm or deny that they paid, then they have paid. If they hadn’t paid, then nothing to hide, why wouldn’t you deny it?
I do find it too convenient that Nine wouldn’t comment while its team were in Beirut and now won’t comment because it is reviewing. It isn’t court proceedings or a Royal Commission, so there is nothing legally that prevents comment. You just choose not to.
How convenient that bank image has come to life.. because nothing like that could be faked, right? (I could created it in 2 minutes in photoshop) – there are far too many competitors who want to see Ch 9 fail here, I would be very cautious about who to believe and listen to here – especially in this digital age where things can be faked really quickly and easily
You are so right, it could easily be faked. If that is the case, channel 9 could easily clear it up for everyone but they choose not to. People will draw their own conclusions.
I’m finding all these joyful, smiling pictures of them to be in incredibly poor taste. They could show a little decorum. Do they realise that there are still people sitting in jail who’s releases were not paid off for with millions of dollars? Millions of dollars which is now going to go into the pockets of a father who disobeyed our laws and kidnapped the children in the first place. This whole story is just sickening.
I won’t begrudge them relief and happiness at their own release.
Peter Greste was clearly over the moon when he returned to Australia, and also acutely aware that he had two colleagues (Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Baher Mohamed) still behind bars.
I should point out that any similarity between the cases of 60 Minutes and Peter Greste begins and ends there.
The father did not disobey any Australian laws. He took his children to Lebanon in May 2015 with the mother’s consent. In a statement, the Family Court confirmed “that parenting orders were made in December 2015 on the application of the mother outlining arrangements for the children in this matter. These orders were made after the children were in the physical care of the father”. You can’t “kidnap” your own children. New passports had to be issued because the mother destroyed the childrens’, a crime in itself. Meanwhile, in April 2015 the mother conceived another child with another guy. The children and their father left Australia in May 2015. Indeed, much about this saga is “sickening”.