| Another one of these 'western woman tries to get her kids back after stupidly marrying Arab man who absconds with the tykes back to the homelands' story. |
Melissa Hawach is understood to have hired a team of mercenaries, including Brian Corrigan, 38, to find her daughters, Hannah, five, and Cedar, three. The girls were secretly taken to Lebanon by their Sydney-based father, Joseph Hawach, in July. They were not returned home to Calgary, Canada, where they lived with their mother.
Mr Corrigan and New Zealander David Pemberton could be jailed for 15 years on charges of kidnapping minors. The pair were reportedly hauled off a plane at Beirut's international airport last Wednesday.
| That close to getting away. |
| "We ain't being paid enough for this! Toodles!" |
The Missing Children Society of Canada, which has supported Mrs Hawach in her bid to find her daughters, insists the men are innocent. Society executive director Rhonda Morgan acknowledged the group had been monitoring the hotel where Mr Hawach was staying with his daughters in the town of Jounieh since the beginning of this month.
But it was Mrs Hawach, 32, who had gone to the hotel last Wednesday, called out to the girls and fled with them in a car, Ms Morgan said. "They came running to her. She said: 'We're going to Mummy's hotel. We'll call Daddy later,' and they left."
| Western woman drives up to a hotel in the south of Lebanon, middle of a war zone, calls to the kidlings and vamoozes in a rental car. And the kiddies just happened to be outside playing in between the Hezbollah posters. Uh-huh. Sure. |
Mr Hawach has been charged with two counts of abduction under Canadian law, and arrest and extradition warrants have been issued. Lebanon, however, does not classify parental abduction as a crime and refuses to honour extradition treaties.
| Since all Dad was doing was returning them to the fold in their rightful place as fourth class citizens ... |