FRANKFURT: A former chief of German foreign intelligence is under investigation for alleged involvement in a plot to kidnap two of the children of a steakhouse chain heiress, prosecutors said Tuesday.
August Hanning, 79, and a retired police officer, who then headed a security firm, are accused of having accepted a commission from Christina Block, whose father founded the popular Block House restaurants.
Prosecutors charge that the two men were involved in an initial failed 2022 plot to kidnap the children from Denmark — which was followed by a successful abduction allegedly involving Israeli ex-security officers on New Year’s Eve 2023.
Hanning and the retired police officer were to be paid more than 100,000 euros ($118,000) in exchange for returning the children in 2022 from Block’s ex-husband, who had custody of the youngsters and was living with them in Denmark, prosecutors in Hamburg said.
The plot involved distracting the children’s escort, using force if necessary, so their mother could put the children into a car and drive them back to Hamburg, northern Germany, they said.
“The plan was only thwarted because the children’s father noticed suspicious individuals at his home in time and informed the Danish police,” according to a statement.
As part of the probe into the case, 13 properties were searched Tuesday in several German states and in Switzerland, according to prosecutors.
Hanning, who was head of the foreign intelligence agency BND from 1998 to 2005, has previously denied in media interviews any involvement in the attempted abduction of the children.
The children were later abducted, on New Year’s Eve 2023. Block, her TV presenter partner and an Israeli man are currently on trial accused of ordering the violent kidnapping.
The boy and girl — aged 10 and 13 at the time — were returned to their father after several days.
Hamburg prosecutors said Tuesday they were examining “whether and to what extent” Hanning and the retired police official, 64, might have been involved in the 2023 abduction.
Prosecutors said that the two men, Block and managers of an Israeli company are also suspected of seeking to discredit the children’s father with false accusations of child sex abuse.
In 2023 a hard drive acquired by the Israeli company containing child porn images was placed on the father’s property, they said.
German ex-spy chief probed over high-profile child kidnap case
https://arab.news/4mfpt
German ex-spy chief probed over high-profile child kidnap case
- Prosecutors charge that the two men were involved in an initial failed 2022 plot to kidnap the children from Denmark
- As part of the probe into the case, 13 properties were searched Tuesday in several German states and in Switzerland, according to prosecutors
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
