Process for Christina Block: Co -accused admits kidnapping

At some point on the mushy path in the forest, the children would have defended themselves, says Tal S. They tried to run away. You would have screamed. “It is no fun to experience such a behavior,” he says. Not if – like him – you tried to save the children from their “evil father”. If you save someone, you assume that he would like to thank you for a hug. “But that was definitely not the case.”

It is the seventh day before the Hamburg Regional Court in the trial against Hamburg entrepreneur Christina Block, Tal S. and five other suspects. Block is said to have commissioned the kidnapping of two of their children after a custody dispute that lasted for years. The children lived in Denmark with her father Stephan Hensel, Block’s former man at the time of the crime. Masked men are said to have violently separated them from Hensel on New Year’s Eve 2023/2024 and deported across the border to Germany.

Tal S. is said to have been one of these masked men. He gives this comprehensively in court on Thursday – and at the same time addresses unusually emotional words to those involved in the process.

Table of Contents

• After further suspects are still being searched for
• Defendant: “Help is my motivation”
• It went on foot across the border
• It continued with a motorhome
• He wanted to take responsibility for his actions
• Key Players and Timeline of the Hamburg Kidnapping Case
• FAQ: Addressing Common Questions About the Case

The 36 -year -old Israeli is the only one of the directly participating alleged kidnappers who are in court. After further suspicious searches, the investigators were submerged shortly after the crime in January 2024. Tal S. was arrested in Cyprus in 2024, and has been in custody in Germany since last November.

Tal S. had started to get involved in the previous day of negotiations. He speaks in Hebrew, an interpreter translated. S. had declared that he grew up in Israel and worked for the police and the state electricity companies. At first he worked as a reading, later he became an investigator for electricity thefts. At the same time, he had trained as a trainer for martial arts, he owned two black belts.

For the first time, he heard from the Block family shortly before New Year’s Eve 2023 about a good friend, Shlomi A. Tal S. met with him, David B. and four other people in Israel. David B. is said to be the head of an Israeli IT security company and largely responsible for the kidnapping of the children, and the investigators are also looking for him. Block denies in court to have given David B. the order to kidnap the children. She was in contact with him to check the cyber security of her hotel, the Hamburg Grand Elysée. The children were kidnapped without their knowledge.

David B., Tal S. reports in court, told Christina Block at that first meeting and her “ugly divorce history”. David B. stated that Stephan Hensel was paranoid, runs Brainwashing, rushing the children against the mother and deliberately moved to Denmark to escape the German authorities. Block is so desperate that she no longer eats properly and looks like a body that she was very afraid for her children.

David B. had described the Block family’s great wish to bring the children back, “necessarily also through a feat”. He asked him if he was ready to help. “I agreed immediately.” He trusted David B., whom he had known loosely before. David B. also spoke of a payment, 10,000 euros per person. But Tal S. emphasized that he didn’t need the money, he never got it and did not know who exactly would have paid him in this case: “Help is my motivation.” He felt “like Superman” that he was about the children.

A few days before New Year’s Eve, he and other alleged kidnappers flown to Hamburg, reports Tal S. on Thursday. He lived in the Hotel Elysée. They would have checked the situation on site for several days, such as the distances, and simulated the “operation”, as S. calls the alleged kidnapping.

During his hours of admission, Tal S. holds his hands over prayer, the view is usually reduced. “To save the children, we didn’t come to do something,” he says. The plan was to “neutralize” Stephan Hensel, i.e. to put it out of action, possibly captivate it with a tape band, but without injuring him. Because he was a martial artist, it was his job to tear Hensel to the ground. He also succeeded, then they drove away with cars. They drove towards the border for ten minutes.

They then be through the forest on foot to get across the border. The younger child, then ten years old, had worn them like “a wounded” because it was so mushy. Everyone was always falling. In contrast to what is called in the indictment – he never threatened to inflict pain from the children or even kill them. “I would never say something like this to children”, he always acted with the intention of saving her from the “evil father”.

The children wore alarm buttons from the Danish police for safety because there were situations in which strangers appeared in front of Hensel’s house months before the kidnapping. Tal S. says in court that the broadcasters on the children have discovered and thrown away. He originally didn’t want to use tape band against the children, but after the children fought back, he thought that was a “solution”. According to the indictment, the mouth was glued to them, the older, 13 -year -old daughter were tied up.

Behind the border in Germany, says Tal S., they rose to a motorhome that was already prepared for the children, for example with blankets and snacks. Most of the children would have slept while driving.

After “a few hours” drive, they would have reached the farm in southern Germany. When Christina Block later arrived at the courtyard, he perceived her as “very moved”. He advised her that she now had to fight a fight to win back the children’s heart. Block had testified to court that an employee of the IT security company informed her at the time that she should come quickly, it was about her children. Then, together with her third child who lives with her, she rose on the train in Hamburg.

The children only stayed with the mother for a few days, on January 5, 2024 the Higher Regional Court decided that the children came back to the father. At that time, says Tal S., this decision disappointed him. Since he had been imprisoned in Germany, his attitude has changed significantly. He believes the German authorities. You would not have decided that if there was really a danger from the father.

Tal S. ensures the most conciliatory moment in this process this morning. “I wanted to take the opportunity to apologize,” he says. For the violence he had done to Hensel, and also towards the children. He also decided to say so to save the children to have to go to court themselves. He hoped that Hensel, who is “the stronger” in the current situation, creates it to put an end to this “war”. He wants to take responsibility for his actions, says Tal S. and adds an unusual request to the judges: In the event of a conviction, he is personally the only one of the accused who should be punished.

Hensel is not present in the hall that day, according to his lawyer Philip von der Meden, he has an appointment. But he discussed this in advance with his client: “He accepts her apology,” he says of Tal S. He will also make sure that the children hear the apology.