Whittington, a Sydney-born operative for his Swedish-based agency Child Abduction Recovery International, was overseeing the ill-fated operation to reunite Brisbane mum Sally Faulkner with her two children in Beirut on April 7 when authorities arrested him, his team and a 60 Minutes crew who were documenting the unfolding drama.
While Faulkner and the media crew were released on April 20 after the Nine Network reached a reported $US500,000 compensation deal with Faulkner’s estranged husband, Whittington, who accuses 60 Minutes of abandoning him, and three other men, remain in jail on kidnapping charges.
Whittington’s first six weeks in prison were hellish, his mother tells WHO. “It wasn’t a big cell, there was no water and he had a hole in the ground for a toilet,” says Georgina through tears at her home on the Gold Coast. “There were rats crawling over him, maggots in the water and he was being fed every three days. He was in the same clothes for six weeks.”
Weeks later, Whittington, who has a home in Sweden with his wife, Swedish real-estate agent Karin, and their boys, Ty, 11, and Nelson, 5, was transported to a prison just outside of Beirut, where he now lives in a shared cell.
Facing months before the matter returns to court and years in prison if convicted of kidnapping, he has turned to his loved ones for strength.
“I have never quit anything and knowing there are so many people doing everything they can for me makes me so determined to fight each day, one day at a time,” he writes. “I promise you all I will not give up.”
For more, pick up a copy of WHO on sale now.
