Mercenaries Grab Tug-of-love Girls In Lebanon  

A former Australian soldier and a New Zealander were in custody in Beirut Saturday after being charged in connection with the kidnapping of two children taken there by their Australian- Lebanese father in defiance of court rulings in Canada.

Brian Corrigan and David Pemberton were taken off a plane at Beirut's international airport on Wednesday. The pair face up to 15 years imprisonment over their alleged involvement in a five-member mercenary squad that could be in the pay of Canadian woman Melissa Hawach, the mother of Hannah, 5, and Cedar,3.

Australia's Foreign Minister confirmed Corrigan was being held in Beirut. "We understand he is being held in relation to a child custody matter," a DFAT spokeswoman said.

Another former Australian soldier, James Arak, and two more New Zealanders, Simon Dunn and Michael Douglas have fled Lebanon.

Hannah and Cedar were taken to Lebanon by their father, Hawach's estranged husband, Joseph Hawach, ostensibly for a three-week holiday in July. He has not been in contact with the woman he married in Sydney in 1999.

The mercenaries are believed to have kidnapped the girls and reunited them with their mother. The three of them are believed to be in hiding in Lebanon.

Canadian authorities have charged Joseph Hawach with two counts of abduction and issued international arrest and extradition warrants.

Melissa Hawach launched unprecedented legal action last month in the Australian courts against her in-laws and her former husband's extended family in a bid to force them to reveal the children's whereabouts.

"I'm not going away, this will never go away until my girls are at home in bed," she said on the steps of the Supreme Court in Sydney. "They are the reason I get up every day. I won't stop looking until I find them."

The matter is complicated by the fact that the girls are considered Lebanese citizens.