Desperate measures in face of mutually exclusive courts

Desperate measures in face of mutually exclusive


Mother in hiding after grabbing back 'stolen' kids

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Melissa Hawach, with her children Hannah (left) and Cedar in earlier times, used hired agents to find her daughters in Jounieh, Lebanon, after her estranged Lebanese-Australian husband, Joseph Hawach, failed to return them following a contact visit.

Melissa Hawach, with her children Hannah (left) and Cedar in earlier times, used hired agents to find her daughters in Jounieh, Lebanon, after her estranged Lebanese-Australian husband, Joseph Hawach, failed to return them following a contact visit.
Photo: Supplied
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A MOTHER was in hiding with her two children last night as details emerged of a daring raid to grab her "stolen" children from their runaway Australian father in Lebanon.

Canadian Melissa Hawach was in Lebanon with a team of hired security workers in a bid to recover Hannah, 5, and Cedar, 3, after her husband, Joseph Hawach, fled to Lebanon rather than return them after an access visit.

Mrs Hawach approached the children in the car park of a hotel where Mr Hawach had been staying, according to the head of a Canadian advocacy group familiar with the case.

"She couldn't leave (Lebanon) without taking the kids," Missing Children Society of Canada executive director Rhonda Morgan said. "They came running to her. She said: 'We're going to Mummy's hotel. We'll call Daddy later.' And they left."

As a result of the raid, Brian Corrigan, 38, a former Australian soldier belonging to Mrs Hawach's security team, and a former New Zealand soldier have been arrested.

Mr Corrigan was one of five security workers hired by Mrs Hawach to find the children.

Mr Hawach took the children to Lebanon without permission in July after they visited him in Sydney from Calgary, Canada, where they were living with their mother.

He had returned to Sydney from Canada after he and his wife separated in 2004.

The Missing Children Society's Ms Morgan said: "There was no raid by these so-called mercenaries. It never happened. They did not go in with guns a-blazing."

Mrs Hawach was accompanied to Lebanon by her father, Jim Engdahl, and an investigator from the society. Ms Morgan said the hotel in the town of Jounieh, where Mr Hawach had been staying with the girls, had been watched by Mrs Hawach's team since the beginning of this month.

Last Wednesday, after exhausting legal avenues through the Lebanese courts, Mrs Hawach went to the hotel. She watched the girls playing near the car park, called out to them, then whisked them away in a car.

"It was never her intention to go to Lebanon to re-abduct them," Ms Morgan said. "She walked up to them in the car park stairway and called out. They came running to her."

Ms Morgan said she had had no contact with Mrs Hawach, 32, since. It is not known whether she has left Lebanon with the children.

It is not clear if Mr Corrigan, 38, believed to be from Wollongong, has been charged. He faces 15 years' jail if convicted of kidnapping. Mr Corrigan and New Zealand former special forces soldier David Pemberton were hauled from a plane at Beirut's international airport on Friday. Fellow team members, Australian James Arak and New Zealanders Simon Dunn and Michael Douglas, fled by other means.

Mr Corrigan, who has a wife and child, is said to have worked in security in Iraq and other places since he left the army a year ago. Australian consular officials have visited him in his police cell.

Mrs Hawach's best friend, Rayanne Witt, speaking from Canada, said Mrs Hawach had exhausted all other options to get her children back.

She visited Sydney in August to plead with the Hawach family for help, then launched court action to try to force them to disclose the children's location.

Although Canadian police have issued an extradition order for Mr Hawach, Lebanon does not recognise parental abduction as a crime and will not honour extradition treaties.

Ms Witt said Mrs Hawach was scared about her trip to Lebanon but was not willing to wait any longer. "She tried to follow the proper protocols. This was her last resort," she said. "Any mother would do this."

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