TARA BROWN AND CREW LEFT HIGH AND DRY BY 60 MINUTES PRODUCERS

Channel 9 was always going to be prepared to pay whatever was needed to get 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, her crew, and as it turned out, Sally Faulkner, on a plane and out of Lebanon.

 

 

One could easily see it as effectively being a bribe what Channel 9 has agreed to pay Ali Elamine, the husband of Faulkner and father of the two children at the centre of the "child recovery operation" gone horribly wrong in Beirut.

 

 

A bribe to sidestep due legal process in Lebanon, a country which has its own laws which everyone, including TV reporters, journalists and their entourages, have to uphold and respect, whether they are an ass or not.

 

 

Fact is Tara Brown and her crew are not the bad eggs here, and it would be a grave injustice for them if they found themselves locked up in a Lebanese prison for weeks, months or even years.

 

 

 

They don't deserve that one bit. Obviously they were let down big time before they even set foot in Lebanon by 60 Minutes producers and the program's lawyers, because they failed miserably to ascertain and identify the potential legal ramifications of what Tara Brown and her crew could be at the receiving end under the laws in Lebanon.

 

 

 

Yes, Lebanon is country run by a quasi-military dictatorship and its police force is wracked by incessant corruption, and my guess is that Ali Elamine is a dodgy character and that Sally Faulkner engaged 60 Minutes to "rescue" her children out of Lebanon for all the right reasons, but fact is what Tara Brown and her crew done was blatantly illegal, and stupid.