If found guilty, Sally faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
The 60 Minutes crew who were filming the attempt has avoided criminal charges, but will face a court-imposed fine after a trial, most likely for a misdemeanour.
Sally’s mother Karen spoke to the media outside her Queensland home just hours after the surprise news from Lebanon.
“It’s very unfair that a woman has to go to these lengths to see and speak to her children and to hold her children, and be charged with kidnapping of her biological children she’s given birth to,” she says.
Sally only briefly speak of her shock when contacted by Fairfax Media overnight but took to social media to share a string of photos of the children at the centre of the controversy, Lahela and Noah.
She slammed their father Ali Elamine for his “lies” and promised she would never forgive him for taking their children back to Lebanon with him.
“Today I contacted the embassy to check on my children and today they replied and said that I need to ask my lawyer to ask Ali’s lawyer to ask Ali to find out if they are okay,” she posted to Instagram.
“Wow when did it become such a process to just ask the question – ‘are you okay?’ to your child and get a reply?
“I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done.. It’s now too late for that. Let’s hope there is no 20 years in jail or extradition.”
Sally’s lawyer is hopeful the kidnapping charge will be dismissed on appeal.
Adam Whittington, the dual Australian-British national who planned the operation, and two of his colleagues have also been charged with kidnapping.
“We are fully confident with the Lebanese criminal justice system that whenever it goes to a trial we will reach to the right appropriate decision, where they consider a kidnapping of a child by his mother is not a kidnapping,” says Adam’s lawyer Joe Karam.
