Court stops evaluation of seized “Zeit” recordings in the Block case

The audio recordings of a “Zeit” journalist confiscated by the Hamburg regional court in connection with the criminal trial surrounding the kidnapping of the children of the steakhouse chain heiress Christina Block will not be evaluated for the time being. According to its own information, the regional court decided this on Thursday at the request of the weekly newspaper and the journalist. The records are therefore “not being touched at the moment”. In general, this does not hinder the execution of the court decision.

Last week, the criminal chamber of the regional court responsible for the block trial ordered a search of the journalist's apartment and the "Zeit" editorial team in order to obtain the records. These come from conversations that the “Zeit” journalist had with members of the affected families about two weeks after the child abduction in question. They served as the basis for a podcast. The court considers them to have “potential evidentiary significance”.

The case surrounding Christina Block is about the alleged kidnapping of her two youngest children from Denmark to Germany on New Year's Eve 2023/24. The background was a years-long custody dispute with her ex-husband Stephan Hensel, with whom the children lived. The Hamburg entrepreneur is said to have commissioned an Israeli security company to bring the children back, which she denies. A criminal trial against her and six other defendants has been running before the Hamburg Regional Court since July 2025.

At the end of September, excerpts from the conversations in the podcast “Time Crime: House of Block” were published. Above all, the statement made by Christina Block's kidnapped daughter caused displeasure in the defense of the accused entrepreneur. In the podcast, the then 13-year-old describes her abduction from her father's home in Denmark. She did not want to testify as a witness in court.