The heiress to a German restaurant fortune and her sports commentator boyfriend hired Israeli spies to kidnap her two young children from Denmark as part of an ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband, authorities allege.
Christina Block, whose family founded the popular steakhouse chain Block House, faces 10 years in prison as she stands trial in Hamburg on charges of aggravated child abduction and unlawful detention.
The sensational trial has captivated Germany due to the lurid details of the alleged kidnapping, which reportedly entailed contracting a group of former Israeli intelligence agents to ambush her ex-husband, Stephan Hensel.
Hensel and his two young children — Klara, 13, and Theodor, 10 — were watching fireworks at their home in a wooded area in Denmark, close to the German border, on New Year’s Eve just before Jan. 1, 2024.
According to German authorities, a group of men accosted Hensel at his home and knocked him down before dragging his son and daughter into a forest and across a stream.
The children allegedly had their mouths taped shut and one of them was tied up, according to the Guardian. One of the men is alleged to have told them: “Be quiet, otherwise we’ll kill you.”
German authorities say that the two children were stashed in a mobile home next to a farmhouse hundreds of miles away in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg. On Jan. 2, 2024, they were picked up by their mother, Block, and taken to her home in Hamburg.
Days later, the kids were handed over to Danish police, who were alerted to the kidnapping after their father managed to attach an alarm to his son.
Gerhard Delling, who is known in Germany as a former soccer commentator for a television network, has been charged with aiding and abetting his girlfriend, Block, in the alleged abduction.
August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, is also standing trial as an alleged accomplice.
German prosecutors allege that Hanning was the go-between who facilitated contacts between Block and the Israeli spies who are alleged to have carried out the kidnapping.
Block has denied the charges. She insisted that her mother, who died nine months before the abduction, paid hundreds of thousands of euros to the Israeli spy firm which carried out the plan that was said to have taken months to formulate.
Authorities have also alleged that Block paid the Israeli spy firm to plant fabricated child pornography throughout Hensel’s property in order to frame him as an abuser. Block has denied the allegations.
Block’s defense team is expected to argue that she became desperate after her two youngest children were wrongfully kept by their father in Denmark.
According to her lawyers, Hensel refused to return the children after a pre-arranged visit in 2021, despite a German court granting Block sole custody.
German police, at the request of Danish authorities, took the children back to Denmark after they were abducted. Danish officials, however, have refused to recognize the German custody order. German media have reported that the same Danish authorities say the children do not want to have any contact with their mother.
Block’s legal team has maintained that she is eager to defend herself in court and refute claims made by Hensel that she poses a danger to her children.
Hensel has been awarded custody of the children by a Danish court — a ruling that Block attempted, unsuccessfully, to overturn in Germany. The children currently live with their father in Denmark at a secret location. All three are reported to have changed their names.
The court proceedings are expected to continue until Christmas, with a total of 141 witnesses and 22 experts scheduled to testify. Over the first two days of the trial, Block and Hensel sat just a few feet apart in the courtroom but did not look at or speak to each other.
Their daughter, now 14 years old, has expressed a desire to testify. However, the case was adjourned last week and is not scheduled to resume until Friday, after concerns were raised about whether the children should be permitted to give evidence.
Particular concern centers on the fact that Hensel is facing separate legal proceedings for failing to comply with the German custody ruling, and that testimony in the current case may conflict with those proceedings.
The high-profile dispute has drawn significant media attention, in part due to Block’s family ties to the Block House restaurant empire. The company’s founder and Block’s father, Eugen Block, 83, has publicly expressed his emotional distress over the situation.
He told the publication Hamburger Abendblatt that he had not seen his grandchildren for several years and that the custody fight had caused him “much heartache.”
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