Die Zeit to pursue legal action over Hamburg court demand to hand over recordings — Anadolu Agency
German weekly newspaper Die Zeit said it will use all available legal means over a demand by a Hamburg court to hand over audio recordings of interviews in a case concerning the alleged abduction of Christina Block’s children. As Anadolu Agency reports, prosecutors and staff from Hamburg’s state criminal police office arrived at the newsroom on Monday and threatened to search the editorial premises.
The Hamburg Regional Court issued a warrant concerning the audio recordings of the interviews. The journalist who conducted the conversations handed over the files in sealed form to avoid an immediate search.
Reaction from the editorial team and journalists’ organizations
Die Zeit editors-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo and Jochen Wegner said that protecting sources is a necessary condition for independent media work. They stressed that they would use all legal options to defend the newsroom.
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German Journalists’ Association chair Mika Beuster criticized the actions of law enforcement officers, saying that journalistic conversations must not become instruments of criminal investigations. Reporters Without Borders called the demand a serious attack on press freedom. The Ver.di union called for the immediate return of the seized materials, noting that editorial materials are not an evidence repository for the judicial system.
Case concerning the abduction of children
According to a court spokesperson, the recordings concern conversations held about two weeks after the alleged abduction of Christina Block’s two children from Denmark on New Year’s Eve 2023–2024. The children’s father, Stephan Hensel, his wife Astrid Gave, and the children themselves took part in them. The court believes that the files may have evidentiary value in proceedings against Block and six co-defendants and shed light on circumstances that have not yet been examined during the main hearings.
Prosecutors claim that Block ordered an operation during which the younger children were taken from Denmark to Germany on January 1, 2024, by people linked to an Israeli company. Her partner, former television presenter Gerhard Delling, is accused of aiding the offense. Block denies the allegations.
