http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/kidnap-drama-in-lebanon/2006/12/23/1166290791414.html
Kidnap drama in Lebanon Danielle Teutsch, Frank Walker and Matthew Benns December 24, 2006 A MOTHER was in hiding with her two children last night as a former Australian soldier, being held in a Beirut jail and facing kidnapping charges for helping her, was declared innocent. Brian Corrigan, 38, believed to be from the Wollongong suburb of Corrimal, has been drawn into a bitter custody fight between the Canadian mother, her estranged Lebanese-Australian husband and their two girls. Mr Corrigan was part of a team of five mercenaries hired by Melissa Hawach to find Hannah, 5, and Cedar, 3, who were taken to Lebanon by their father, Joseph, without permission during a holiday with him in Sydney in July. The girls lived in Calgary, Canada, with their mother. Mr Hawach returned from Canada to Sydney after he and his wife separated in 2004. Missing Children Society of Canada executive director Rhonda Morgan said: "There was no raid by these so-called mercenaries. It never happened. They did not go in with guns a-blazing." Mrs Hawach went to Lebanon with her father, Jim Engdahl, and an investigator from the MCSC. Ms Morgan said the hotel in the town of Jounieh where Mr Hawach had been staying with the girls had been watched by Mrs Hawach's team since the beginning of December. Last Wednesday, after exhausting legal avenues to get the girls back through the Lebanese courts, Mrs Hawach went to the hotel. She watched the girls playing near the car park, called out to them, then whisked them away in a car. "It was never her intention to go to Lebanon to re-abduct them," Ms Morgan said. "She walked up to them in the car park stairway and called out. They came running to her. She said, 'We're going to Mummy's hotel. We'll call Daddy later,' and they left." Ms Morgan said she had had no contact from Mrs Hawach, 32, since. It is not clear whether she has left Lebanon. "I can only hope and pray that she's out of Lebanon," Ms Morgan said. She said members of the team were planning to go home for the holidays. "She was going to be left alone and she couldn't leave without taking the kids," Ms Morgan said. Mr Corrigan, who would face 15 years' jail if convicted of kidnapping, and New Zealand ex-special forces soldier David Pemberton were hauled from a plane at Beirut's international airport on Friday. The three other members of the team - Australian James Arak and New Zealanders Simon Dunn and Michael Douglas - fled by other means. Mr Corrigan is said to have worked in security in Iraq and other places since he left the army a little over a year ago. He is a keen surfer and physical fitness trainer with a wife and child. Australian consular officials have visited him in the police cell, but it is not clear if he has been charged. Mrs Hawach's best friend, Rayanne Witt, speaking from her home in Saskatchewan in Canada, said Mrs Hawach had exhausted all other options to get her children back. She visited Sydney in August to plead with members of the Hawach family for help, then launched a Supreme Court action last month to try to force them to disclose the location of the children. Canadian police have issued international warrants for Mr Hawach but Lebanon does not recognise parental abduction as a crime. Source: The Sun-Herald +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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