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Beirut: Channel Nine directly transferred almost $70,000 to the child abduction firm engaged to retrieve Sally Faulkner's two children from Lebanon, documents have shown.
Fairfax Media has obtained a bank statement showing what Adam Whittington says is proof the Nine Network directly paid his firm, Child Abduction Recovery International, for the botched operation that landed Ms Faulkner and a four-person crew from 60 Minutes in a Beirut prison for two weeks.
A local source connected to the case said Nine had made a mistake, paying the money into Sally's nominated account without realising it was Whittington's firm.
A Nine spokeswoman said: "We can't make any comment as all these matters are part of the review we are conducting."
The development came as reporter Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment flew home to Australia after Ms Faulkner's estranged husband Ali Elamine agreed to drop the kidnapping charges against them all in return for his former partner's agreement not to contest custody.
Nine's Director of News and Current Affairs, Darren Wick, whisked his crew directly to Beirut Airport from their jail cells, where they celebrated their taste of freedom.
A picture of the group was posted on social media showing them celebrating their freedom with a round of beer.
60 Minutes team begin to make their way home to Australia, with 9News' Darren Wick. pic.twitter.com/TBhL4Qd4gD— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) April 20, 2016
The crew landed in Sydney just before 10pm on Thursday evening with uncomfortable questions to face over the failed "child retrieval" operation. Nine has promised a "full review" to explore how the network's current affairs flagship "became part of the story".
A development likely to exacerbate those questions is the emergence of a bank receipt, dated January 22 this year, showing $69,000 was transferred into an account called IPCA Limited.
The payment was made from TCN Channel Nine's ANZ bank account, according to the document provided by Mr Whittington's lawyer Joe Karam.
Nine is still refusing to comment on the subject of the payments because Sally Faulkner remains in Lebanon ahead of a custody hearing with Mr Elamine and their two children before the investigative judge Rami Abdullah at the Palace of Justice.
Nine CEO Hugh Marks emailed staff on Thursday morning promising a comprehensive investigation into how the crew became embroiled in the kidnapping plot.
"It is important to reiterate that at no stage did anyone from Nine or 60 Minutes intend to act in any way that made them susceptible to charges that they breached the law or to become part of the story that is Sally's story. But we did become part of the story and we shouldn't have," he said.
"Nine will conduct a full review that will be headed by Gerald Stone, with David Hurley and General Counsel Rachel Launders, to ascertain what went wrong and why our systems, designed to protect staff, failed to do so in this case."
"We will task the review with recommending the necessary actions to ensure that none of our colleagues are put in a similar position in the future."
Mr Stone, 60 Minutes' founding executive producer, and retired Nine executive Hurley will question the program's current executive producer, Kirsty Thompson - but the payment of the $69,000 appears to have been made when her predecessor, Tom Malone, was in charge.
Sources at Nine say 60 Minutes staffers are concerned that Thompson will be unfairly accused of overseeing the bungled operation, when it's understood it was pushed primarily by Malone before his departure at the start of February.
He was promoted to director of sport at the network earlier this year.
Malone is regarded as having had a rapid rise at Channel Nine, having started his career as a political reporter for radio station 2UE in Canberra from 2000 to 2002.
He was appointed to the current affairs top job in 2012 aged 32, after successfully holding down the EP role for the Today Show during the program's breakfast resurgence.
On Monday, the network's Lebanese lawyer insisted Ms Faulkner had already contracted Mr Whittington and approached the network about them paying for her story.
But Mr Karam said Channel Nine had behaved unethically as the receipt showed they did not pay solely for Sally Faulkner's story, as claimed.
"That shows that they did ask him to provide an investigation in a missing child which is not buying a story, they asked for what happened," he said.
"Ethically it wasn't appropriate for Channel Nine to arrange for a deal and not include the man they asked to execute for them something." Mr Whittington remains in custody in Lebanon.
Mr Elamine insisted on Wednesday that he did not receive a payout from the media company but said it was a mixture of sympathy for the Nine crew and an acceptance that they were not directly involved in the plot that led to him agreeing to drop personal charges against the four.
However, Mr Karam says he doubted the deal struck was "pro bono" but said he was not party to those negotiations.
