Beirut: The Australian man jailed in Lebanon for orchestrating the failed child-abduction plot paid for by the Nine Network says he is no criminal.

Adam Whittington spoke to Fairfax Media after a five-hour journey from a jail in the northern city of Tripoli, notorious for its extremist inmates.

The former soldier and dual Australian-British national runs a self-styled child abduction agency called Child Abduction Recovery International. He has been in jail since the attempt to recover the two children of Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner on April 6 went horribly wrong.