Hamburg kidnapping case against Christina Block stalls again after 82 days in court
The story
Christina Block, whose family built one of Germany's best known steakhouse chains, has been on trial in Hamburg since July of last year. Prosecutors say she arranged for an Israeli security firm to take her two youngest children by force from her former husband, Stephan Hensel, at his home in Denmark around New Year 2024.
According to the charges, the children were driven to southern Germany in a campervan and kept there until their mother collected them and brought them back to Hamburg. Block, a family lawyer named Andreas Costard and one of the alleged operatives face counts of abducting minors, serious bodily harm and unlawful detention. Block denies knowing about any plan, and her defense says the security team acted on its own.
The case grew out of a long custody fight. A Hamburg court had given Block custody and ordered the children returned, but a Danish court later ruled they could stay in Denmark. The trial has also pulled in a former head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, August Hanning, over claims tied to an earlier attempt to bring the children back in 2022.
The hearings are now paused for two weeks, one of many breaks since the trial began. Lawyers are still working through a huge pile of phone data, and a fight over recordings a journalist made with the children could add even more time before the court reaches a decision.
