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
China says Philippines distorted facts about incident near disputed atoll
- The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained”
BEIJING: China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines on Wednesday of distorting the facts about an incident involving the Chinese coast guard and Filipino fishermen near a South China Sea shoal, a charge Manila strongly rejected.
The Philippine coast guard said over the weekend that three Filipino fishermen were injured and two fishing vessels damaged when Chinese coast guard ships cut their anchor lines and fired water cannon near the Sabina Shoal on Friday, actions the Philippine defense secretary denounced as “dangerous” and “inhumane.”
The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained,” and vowed to “take strong and effective measures” in response to “all acts of infringement and provocation,” according to a statement released on its social media account.
“The Philippine side amassed a large number of ships in an organized and premeditated manner to illegally intrude” into the atoll’s lagoon, the ministry said. “Philippine personnel even threatened Chinese coast guard on site with a knife,” it added.
Philippine defense ministry spokesperson Arsenio Andolong maintained that Manila has evidence to counter China’s assertions.
“The facts are not distorted. They are documented, timestamped, and corroborated by video recordings, vessel logs, and on-site reporting by the Philippine Coast Guard,” Andolong said in a statement.
“The Philippines is not hyping the issue, the facts speak for themselves. These are aggressive and excessive actions of an encroaching state,” he added.
Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as Xianbin Reef and the Philippines as the Escoda Shoal, lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone 150 km (95 miles) west of Palawan province.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway supporting more than $3 trillion of annual commerce. The areas Beijing claims cut into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
An international arbitral tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s sweeping claims had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.
