Enlarge image
Exterior view of the Hotel Grand Elysée in Hamburg: Search for evidence
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
The Hamburg public prosecutor's office has the Hotel Grand Elysée in the Christina Block case
and have the blockhouse headquarters searched.
The authorities confirmed this to SPIEGEL.
The “Bild” newspaper had previously reported on the search of the hotel.
The background was the “investigations into the forcible transport of two children of the accused Block to Germany,” it continued.
The aim of the searches was therefore to secure evidence.
Incident on New Year's Eve
The case is based on a custody dispute over the two youngest children of Christina Block and her ex-husband Stephan Hensel.
The two separated in 2014.
The two youngest children lived with their mother until 2021.
They never returned from a visit to their father in Denmark.
The father also ignored a decision from the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court from October 2021 that he should hand over the children.
On New Year's Eve, the children watched the fireworks at their father's house in the town of Gråsten, near the German border.
According to Danish police, shortly after midnight he was attacked by several men and brought to the ground.
The two children were then forced into a car and the perpetrators eventually drove away in two cars with German license plates.
Shortly afterwards the children showed up at their mother's house.
Custody dispute no longer being heard in Germany
Christina Block, through her lawyer, denied having anything to do with the matter.
A few days after New Year's Eve, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court ordered the 50-year-old to release the children to their father.
You are back in Denmark.
Following a decision by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court, German courts no longer have jurisdiction over the custody dispute between Hamburg entrepreneur Christina Block and her ex-husband.
The court announced in mid-February that the reason was that the children now had their permanent center of life in Denmark.
bbr