Australia 60 Minutes producer sacked over Lebanon 'kidnap' case

The producer of an Australian TV programme has lost his job after his team was accused of kidnapping two children involved in a custody dispute.

The 60 Minutes team hired agents to grab the children from a street in Lebanon, where their mother said they had been moved without her permission.

Producer Stephen Rice will leave Channel Nine immediately.

An inquiry by the station concluded that "inexcusable errors" were made in the planning of the documentary.

Other staff have been given formal warnings.

The mother and four members of the TV team were arrested and imprisoned after the incident. They were released on bail, but two British men and two Lebanese men continue to be detained.

The Australian mother of the children, Sally Faulkner, says her estranged husband Ali Elamine moved their six-year-old daughter Lahala and four-year-old son Noah to Lebanon from Australia last year without her permission, something he denies.

In April, Ms Faulkner and a TV crew from 60 Minutes went to Lebanon to cover her story.

The crew allegedly filmed the children being seized as they headed to school in southern Beirut on 6 April with a domestic worker and their paternal grandmother, who says she was knocked to the ground.

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Mr Rice, cameraman Benjamin Williamson, sound recorder David Ballment and reporter Tara Brown were charged with kidnapping, physical assault, hiding information and criminal conspiracy.

Ms Faulkner was charged with kidnapping and belonging to a criminal gang.

A judge allowed them to leave Lebanon after Mr Elamine agreed to drop all "personal" charges against them.

They could face trial in absentia if the "public" charges are not dropped.

The founder of 60 Minutes, Gerald Stone, said on Thursday that the case was "the gravest misadventure in the programme's history".

Channel Nine's CEO, Hugh Marks, said: "We got too close to the story and suffered damaging consequences."

Lebanon, unlike Australia, is not party to the Hague Convention, a treaty designed to ensure the swift return of children abducted internationally by a relative.