Ex-Australian solidier Adam Whittington has told Sunday Night that 60 Minutes left him to rot in one of the world's worst prisons, even though they paid for the child retrieval operation.
"I was shocked when they walked out with their champagnes," Mr Whittington's wife Karin told Sunday Night's Mike Willesee.
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Adam Whittington on Sunday Night
The man at the centre of the 60 Minutes Beirut child-snatch bungle returns home promising to tell "the truth" after more than 100 days behind bars. Courtesy 'Sunday Night'.
Mr Whittington alleges Nine paid directly $115,000 in fees, boat hire and expenses to his Child Abduction International Recovery organisation (CARI), which the network has denied.
"The invoice clearly shows payment from 60 Minutes, Channel Nine, to our account," he said.
"I mean, everything they said in the media, we could prove it was a lie."
"It was a big lie. It's sad," Mrs Whittington added.
Mr Whittington says he's been betrayed by the Nine Network.
"They just want to keep me quiet, honestly they don't want the truth to come out. To stop me sitting here in front of you or anyone else," he said.
![Adam Whittington gives his exclusive tell-all to Sunday Night about what really happened in Lebanon.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/d/w/z/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
He later went on to say that sacked producer Stephen Rice was "just used as a scape goat also".
"So for them to get rid of Stephen Rice was exactly what they did with us in Beirut, left us there. Threw him under the bus just like they did to us. I've seen that review, I received a copy of it in the prison. It was passed around and used as toilet paper."
![Adam Whittington can now leave Lebanon.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/b/e/z/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
Mr Whittington was jailed in Lebanon for nearly four months after being detained over the failed abduction of Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner's two children.
"I've sat in a Lebanon prison the most horrible place ever, spent four months nearly away from my kids," Mr Whittington said. "I've missed my five-year-old's birthday and I still haven't been charged. Officially we have not been charged."
![Ali Elamine has been in a custody dispute with his estranged wife Sally Faulkner.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/b/a/b/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
Ms Faulkner had sent the children to Beirut for a holiday with their father Ali Elamine in May 2015 but he never returned them, prompting her desperate action.
The raid by CARI, funded by the Nine Network, took place in Beirut's southern suburbs controlled by Hezbollah, to whom Faulkner's estranged husband is closely connected. "It was the only area to do it. was the safest place to do it," Mr Whittington said, who was preparing the getaway boat at the time.
![A Lebanese plainclothes policeman prevents Ms Brown from looking towards journalists as she was taken from the courthouse.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/9/g/i/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
Although they were accused of hurting the children's grandmother during the snatch, Mr Whittington said "no one was injured at all". The whole thing was filmed by Nine's cameraman Ben.
"She was not touched at all, no one was touched only the children. There was no assault."
![Reporter Tara Brown Brown, centre, David Ballment, left, and Sally Faulkner, right, have been released from a Beirut jail.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/b/d/q/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
He told Sunday Night that "nothing went wrong, the recovery went just to plan".
"I spent 20 minutes with Sally and the kids in the safe house. They were so happy. All they kept saying [was], 'Mummy we're going back to Australia, we're going back to home'," Mr Whittington said.
![Adam Whittington (left) at Beirut airport with his lawyer Joe Karam as he prepared to fly out of Lebanon.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/c/f/f/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
"I went back to the boat and we were sort of finalising the departure papers with customs, immigration and the marina and the police just turned up, Hezbollah turned up, the army turned up."
CARI's Mr Whittington, Briton Craig Michael and local men Khaled Barbour and Mohammed Hamza were detained along with the Nine network's television crew, including star presenter Tara Brown, and Ms Faulkner.
![Craig Michael (on right) in a promotional photo for a tv show produced by Wild Pictures.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/d/k/3/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
"All we had to do was to get those two children on the boat. They were safe with Sally in the safe house the final stage was to transport them from the safe house to the boat as planned and leave officially through Lebanese waters," Mr Whittington said. But the plan was foiled.
"Yeah the police knew about it."
![Tara Brown and sacked producer Stephen Rice on their return to Sydney, after being released from a Lebanese jail.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/e/1/w/j/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
The children's father was already there at the police station when they were brought in, Mr Whittington alleges Mr Elamine said to them: "Welcome to Lebanon you c---, this is not Australia now you're f---ed."
Mr Elamine had previously bragged he had access to his ex-wife's email account and knew of her plans to snatch back her children.
![Sally Faulkner with her daughter Lahala.](/web/20160911154236im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/e/1/w/h/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grdwap.png/1473595546917.jpg)
Mr Michael said in a Facebook statement that the child-snatch went exactly to plan until it was foiled at the very last minute "by a very evil person."
It was alleged on Sunday Night that Ms Faulkner's Facebook posts could have given the operation away. And there was also an interview from the rescue boat on the eve of the operation where Mr Whittington discussed the 60 Minutes story.
"If we were to do the job tomorrow, the exact same job, same people involved it would be done the same way," Mr Whittington said.
Mrs Whittington said she was shaking and couldn't face daily life in the first week of his detention. Her husband was drinking water with maggots, in a cell with no windows, and he never had a shower in five weeks. Rats would come while they slept, which Mr Whittington gave names to, according to letters to his mother.
"We were all going through the same conditions," Mr Whittington said. "The [Nine crew] were getting a lot of good things being brought in, they were getting pizzas; when they were going upstairs they were getting coffees."
Ms Faulkner and Mr Whittington are meant to be facing kidnapping charges over the operation, which was caught on CCTV.
Mr Whittington raised the $US20,000 he needed for his bail by selling his car and fundraising with his supporters. However his three accomplices languished in jail further, where one still remains since their arrest on April 6.
Nine abandoned the CARI operatives when they negotiated a freedom deal with Mr Elamine, worth an estimated $500,000. Under their bargain, the network's four-person television crew, including Ms Brown, and Ms Faulkner walked free after spending two weeks in jail in Beirut.
"As soon as they pulled out their cheque book everything went downhill for everybody obviously not for channel nine's crew," said Mr Whittington.
"It's clearly a [$500,000] cheque from channel Nine's lawyer to Ali's lawyer in Lebanon. And it specifically says this cheque for compensation to Ali for the working team."
Mr Whittington was transferred to a prison in Tripoli, Lebanon, which was described as one of the world's most violent jails. It was "pretty bad .. it's just one of those places you don't want to remember", according to Mr Whittington, whose eyes filled with tears on the recollection of the treatment of a gay man in the prison.
Mr Whittington denies kidnapping Ms Faulkner's children. "I can understand how it comes across but those people have not been in Sally's shoes."
"When Sally first approached us last year to help her, she did not have custody so as part of a requirement for us to help parents they must have full custody so we advised her to go away to the courts in Australia to get full custody and she did do that."
His mother Georgina has defended her son as a good person, with a "really good heart". "A lot of people with the negative, saying 'oh he's just a kidnapper'. He's not a kidnapper."
Mr Whittington still maintains that "Sally had the Australian law behind her" and he didn't believe they committed a crime "as far as we knew".
"I can see their point of view and if they can look behind all that, if they were in Sally's shoes or another left behind parents' shoes why wouldn't you try and get your children back?"
Mr Whittington said he's motivated only by "the satisfaction of seeing these children reunited with their mother or father".
"It's like an urge in him to help these kids. He is a family man and he loves the rush of being out there and doing these things," said his Swedish wife, Karin, about the father of two sons.
The Seven Network has denied paying Mr Whittington for his exclusive tell-all interview against their rival network.
"Sunday Night made no payment to Mr Whittington, his family or any other party for the interview," Seven said in a statement, which was further verified by Mr Whittington during the show.
The social commentary about the interview was sparse but supportive.
#AdamWhittington telling the truth is already got me in tears! @sundaynighton7 thank you for allowing him a voice, @60Minutes
— Tommy Schroeter (@TommySchroeter) September 11, 2016
Good on @sundaynighton7 for letting Adam Whittington tell his side of the story on what happen 60 mins should hang their head in shame #SN7
— NJL ANTI-MSM BIAS (@ANTI_ALP) September 11, 2016
@sundaynighton7 great to hear his side. Shame on 60 minutes. #SN7 Adam Whittington still not the best idea to post videos on social media
— lucas antonello (@Roofus_84) September 11, 2016
Seven's Sunday Night taking the knife to Nine and 60 Minutes over the Beirut debacle with Adam Whittington interview
— Daniela Ritorto (@danielaritorto) September 11, 2016
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