Dad won't drop charges in 60 Minutes case

Ali Elamine, the father at the centre of a Beirut abduction saga, says he won't drop the charges against his estranged Australian wife.

Australian mother Sally Faulkner has spoken for the first time from her Beirut prison cell. Source: AAP

The father at the centre of an alleged child abduction saga in Lebanon says he is not willing to drop charges against his estranged wife because he believes it would lead to the release of the Nine Network news team who filmed the operation and those who carried it out.

"The way they are trying to push for this is that if (Australian woman) Sally (Faulkner) goes out on bail, they all get out," 32-year-old Ali Elamine said as he prepared to meet the judge Rami Abdullah on Monday.

"That is how I am seeing it as an outsider. ... They are pushing for Sal's release and everyone else gets a green card."

Nine had "dropped the ball by getting involved in family matters" and now "everyone is blaming the other for what happened", he added.

He discounted claims by Ms Faulkner's lawyer, Ghassan Moughabghab, that negotiations over the custody dispute had broken down, saying they had not started.

"All that's happened is the judge asked us to talk."

Ms Faulkner is facing charges of kidnapping her two children and belonging to a criminal gang.

It is unclear whether she will appear on Monday in the Beirut court, alongside 60 Minutes journalist Tara Brown and her crew who have been held in a Lebanese jail since their arrest earlier this month.

Ms Faulkner has been fighting to get access to her children for nine months, Mr Moughabghab said, after her estranged husband Mr Elamine took Lahela, 5 and Noah, 3, on a three-week holiday to Lebanon and did not return them as agreed.

But an attempt to snatch them from a suburban Beirut street by a "child recovery team", caught on CCTV, was ultimately unsuccessful.

The children were returned to their father and the 60 Minutes team in Lebanon to film the recovery - Brown, Benjamin Williamson, David Ballment and Stephen Rice - were arrested.

The two others are believed to be members of the child recovery agency hired for the operation - Britons Craig Michael and Adam Whittington.

Whittington claims he has receipts showing that Nine made online payments totalling $115,000 to him for the planning of the operation and recovery of the children.

"It was direct from Channel Nine, it was from their accounts department and they paid it in two instalments," he told The Australian.

Nine has refused to comment.

All involved are facing charges of kidnapping and being members of a criminal gang, which can attract maximum sentences of up to three years and 10 years respectively.