The children—who hold citizenship in Canada, Australia and Lebanon—were taken to Lebanon by their father in July 2006 in violation of Canadian custody orders and subsequently retrieved by their mother in December 2006 in defiance of Lebanese law.
The two girls were living with Hawach in Calgary, Alberta, Canada when, on July 1, 2006, their Lebanese-Australian father took them on a three-week visit to Australia with their mother's consent.
[1] Joseph received custody of the children from a Lebanese court, as the country's law automatically awards parental rights to the father unless he is proven unfit.
[5] On December 21, having already failed in an effort to retrieve the children through the Lebanon court system,[6] Hawach and the soldiers escorting her took them away from the grounds outside the resort in which they were living with their father.
[5] Two of the former soldiers involved, Brian Corrigan of Australia and David Pemberton of New Zealand, were arrested in Beirut as they attempted to leave the country.
[7][8] Several months after their arrest, as a Lebanese court recognised Melissa Hawach as the custodian of the children, the charges against the two were reduced to misdemeanors and terms were set for their release on bail.
[18][19] Canadian Parliamentary member Dan McTeague has cited the case as illustrating Canada's need to secure treaties concerning child custody with other countries.