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Home / New Zealand

Mother of abducted children praises jailed Kiwi soldier

NZPA
26 Feb, 2007 04:00 PM2 mins to read

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KEY POINTS:

Melissa Hawach has praised the former New Zealand and Australian special forces soldiers who helped grab her abducted children, saying she will continue to fight for the men's release from a Lebanese prison.

Former Special Air Services soldier David Bruce Pemberton, 40, a New Zealander from Tamatea near
Napier, and Australian Brian Corrigan, 38, are in a Lebanese jail as a result of Mrs Hawach's retrieval mission.

Last week, a Lebanese judge ruled they should be jailed for up to three years for their role in helping Mrs Hawach retrieve her children from their father last year.

"Our main objective right now is to do whatever we can to bring justice to the two fellas that are there because it's ridiculous," Mrs Hawach told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

"There has been an injustice done. These men have committed no crime, they have done nothing wrong and they are being held there."

Melbourne's Herald-Sun reported Mrs Hawach was back in Canada and had posed for television cameras with her children at an undisclosed place.

Mrs Hawach said Canadian Government officials have had discussions with the Lebanese Prime Minister and Justice Minister and she urged Australian and New Zealand politicians to do the same.

Pemberton was visited last month by British Embassy officials working on behalf of New Zealand.

The Hawachs married in Sydney in 1999 but separated two years ago. Mrs Hawach had returned to Canada with the two girls.

Joseph Hawach had taken the children to see their grandparents in Sydney before taking them to Lebanon, his ancestral homeland.

- NZPA

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