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Producer of the Australian commercial television channel Nine Network’s TV program “60 Minutes” was fired after the scandalous report in Beirut, because of which he and his crew were temporarily detained by Lebanese law enforcement agencies, RIA Novosti reported.

The reporter of the “60 Minutes” program Tara Brown, producer Steven Rice and two cameramen were arrested in Beirut while doing a report about attempts of mother to return the two children who lived with the Lebanese father to Australia.

ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation stated that Nine Network declared today that producer Stephen Rice will immediately leave the company.

According to the head of TV channel Hugh Marx, Rice's action led to serious risk for his team and caused a significant damage to reputation of the TV channel.

 Marx noted that they approached too close to the story and suffered from the consequences.

According to mass media, the children's mother Sally Faulkner hired special agency to return the children. According to the videos received from surveillance cameras and were aired on local TV channels, in early April unknown people came out of a parked car, grabbed Faulkner’s daughter and son at one of the bus stops in the southern part of Beirut. Children were under the care of their grandmother and babysitter. The police of Lebanon accused the Australian journalists of participation in kidnapping. At the same time the mother of the abducted children, was also detained in Beirut a day after the fact of the disappearance of children.

About two weeks later the Australian journalists was released, Stephen Rice and reporter Tara Brown returned to Sydney.

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