A man has been charged with kidnapping his children and refusing to return them to Denmark from Lebanon

A Lebanese man was arrested in Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport Wednesday and charged with kidnapping five of his six Danish children.

The man and his wife lived together in Denmark until she gained sole custody of their children in 2001. All the children have Danish citizenship.

In August last year, the mother agreed to let the children take a holiday to Lebanon with their father. But the father allegedly had no plans of returning them to Denmark.

Police believe that the children – two sons aged 17 and 13 and three girls aged 15 and eight-year-old twins – are still in Lebanon but have had no contact with them and don’t know their exact location. A sixth sibling, a 19-year-old girl, is also with the others. But because she is no longer a minor, the father cannot be charged with kidnapping her.

Ekstra Bladet newspaper reports that the man, who was claiming incapacity benefit in Denmark, wanted to return the twins but could not afford the plane tickets. So he came to Copenhagen to raise the funds, where he was promptly arrested by police.

‘We knew he was on the flight. We tried to resolve the case via diplomatic channels but without result,’ said Henning Schou Kofoed of Copenhagen Police.

During the investigation into the children’s disappearance, authorities stopped payment of the 44-year-old’s pension in an effort to force his to return the children.

The man has pleaded not guilty to the charges.