Overview
- In Hamburg, the criminal trial against Christina Block resumed with three youth welfare officials set to testify, including an ex-staffer who said she had heard no allegations of maternal violence before summer 2021 and initially urged the children’s prompt return to their mother.
- The former Jugendamt caseworker described difficult contact with the father, said she could not speak with the children, raised concerns about “active” estrangement and a lack of bonding tolerance, and noted Danish authorities did not enforce a German order to return the children.
- Court records and prior testimony recount that the two children were allegedly taken from their father’s Danish home on New Year’s 2023/24 by a team linked to an Israeli security firm, briefly reunited with their mother, and were then ordered back to Denmark on January 5, 2024.
- The alleged organizer, David Barkay, previously testified that a lawyer delivered €220,000 in cash to the kidnappers and implicated Block and others; the court plans to question him further on January 19.
- In a separate case in Siegen, a 49-year-old mother is on trial over accusations she kept her daughter hidden for about seven years, with the grandparents charged as accomplices; the opening hearing on January 7 was interrupted due to the grandfather’s absence and is scheduled to continue on January 12, with the child reported to have suffered significant developmental delays after being freed in 2022.