An Australian mum has been reunited with her two children a decade after their dad jetted off to Lebanon with them in a bitter custody dispute that infamously ended in disaster.
Sally Faulkner was embroiled in scandal in 2016 when she and a Channel Nine crew were detained in Beirut during a bungled attempt to retrieve her young daughter and son, then aged six and four.
The scheme was hatched for a 60 Minutes segment hosted by acclaimed journalist Tara Brown, who along with Faulkner and three other members of the television team were arrested.
The group faced several charges, including kidnapping, physical assault, hiding information and criminal conspiracy - which were all later dropped.
Almost ten years later, Faulkner is finally back with her children in Australia after winning temporary custody in a US court, the Guardian reports.
According to court documents, Faulkner's ex-husband Ali Elamine fled Lebanon with the children in November during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The trio went to Georgia in the United States, with Elamine and Faulkner making arrangements for her to fly over and meet them a few days after they arrived.
But prior to her arrival, Faulkner filed a temporary protection order in Georgia accusing Elamine of family violence during their marriage and kidnapping their children in 2015 and failing to return them to her.
Sally Faulkner has been reunited with her two children a decade after their dad jetted off to Lebanon with them in a bitter custody dispute that infamously ended in disaster.
Faulkner is pictured with her ex-husband Ali Elamine and their children before their marriage breakdown.
Sheriff's deputies served Elamine with the order when he turned up at the meeting and Faulkner left with the children.
She and the children arrived back in Queensland in January this year.
According to documents filed by Elamine, he claimed he and Faulkner had signed a consent agreement in the lead up to their meeting which granted him full custody of their children.
After the protection order was issued, he filed documents to the court denying the allegations levelled by Faulkner.
A judge dismissed the protection order in December due to lack of evidence for the allegations and because the former couple live in different continents, rendering it unnecessary.
However, the following month, Faulkner was granted temporary custody in order to participate in a 'family reunification program', which is designed to facilitate the process of restoring parents with children who have spent time separated.
Under the program, which was recommended by an independent court-appointed advocate for children's welfare, Elamine is not allowed to contact the children.
The matters, which are being funded in part by the Australian government, remain before the US courts.
In 2016 Faulkner and the Channel Nine crew flew to Lebanon with a group of employees of British-based firm Child Abduction Recovery International.
According to a court transcript from a hearing in August, a Georgia judge said it was the 'most screwed up case I've ever had in my entire 45 years of being a lawyer and a judge'.
In 2015, Elamine allegedly flew their then-five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son on a holiday to his native Lebanon before later telling her: 'They're staying here with me.'
The following year, Faulkner and the Channel Nine crew flew to Lebanon with a group of employees of British-based firm Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI).
The CARI agents snatched the children while they were at a Beirut bus stop with Elamine's mother.
However, Elamine had been monitoring the plan using his daughter's iPad which was still connected toFaulkner's email account.
He contacted the police who arrested the group and threw them into jail.
Faulkner,Brown,and the Channel Nine crew were released two weeks later after striking a deal with Elamine to have the charges dropped in exchange for compensation and her signing an agreement to hand over custody.
The saga made global headlines at the time,with Stephen Rice,the producer of the child recovery story,sacked amid fallout from the scandal as an internal review found 'inexcusable errors' were made.
While Faulkner has had occasional video and phone contact with her children over the past nine years,the last time she physically saw them before her recent custody win was during the botched recovery mission in 2016.