The perpetrator of the crime and his family were already known to the authorities. The man was there in the past
convicted of kidnapping the child from his mother. Hamburg Airport wants to reinforce its security measures.
The Hamburg airport hijacker will be brought before the judge on Monday. “There is still no arrest warrant, no appearance before the judge has taken place yet,” said public prosecutor Liddy Oechtering on Monday in Hamburg. The 35-year-old man was placed in a detention center after police measures were completed, police said.
A police spokesperson explained that evidence was seized, the Turkish citizen was identified and blood was collected. After a pre-trial detention for a crime, the suspect must be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours, who will decide on pre-trial detention and issue an appropriate arrest warrant.
18-hour war of nerves at Hamburg airport
According to police, the man kidnapped his four-year-old daughter from her mother’s apartment in the Stade on Saturday and fled with her in a car towards Hamburg. At the airport, he broke through a barrier and drove his car into the airport apron. After a war of nerves that lasted more than 18 hours, the man handed himself in to the police on Sunday afternoon. The hostage taking ended without bloodshed.
According to a witness, before the four-year-old child was taken hostage at Hamburg airport, the mother desperately tried to stop her ex-partner. The woman screamed in the street and tried to stop the car, the mother’s Stade neighbor said on Monday. The man almost hit the woman and she fell into the street. The 24-year-old said he witnessed the child’s kidnapping.
The youth welfare office already had something to do with the family
According to police, the 35-year-old man visited his 38-year-old ex-wife at the Stade on Saturday and placed their daughter in her possession. He fired a pistol into the air twice, put the child in a black car and fled.
The witness said he wanted to help the woman. But his brother then shouted that the man had a gun. “I was shocked,” said the 24-year-old. The man pushed the child into the car and drove off at high speed. He almost not only hit the woman, but also another neighbor. He doesn’t know the family personally.
The dramatic scenes took place in a residential area with red-brick apartment buildings and terraced houses. “It’s a pretty quiet area,” said the 24-year-old.
Meanwhile, it became public that the kidnapper’s family was known to the Stade district youth welfare office. “For social data protection reasons and out of consideration for the welfare of the child, we are unable to provide further basic information at this time,” a spokesperson for the authority said on Monday.
Several reports of child abduction
For privacy reasons, police declined to say where the mother and child are currently or how the four-year-old girl is doing. The child was given food and drink during the 18-hour hostage taking on the airport tarmac.
The child’s father was sentenced to a fine of 3,600 euros in the past for abducting minors, Kai Thomas Breas, spokesman for the Stade Public Prosecutor’s Office, said on Monday. The Turk took the girl back to his homeland. The mother filed a complaint, but initially tried to resolve the issue in other ways. The case was therefore initially archived.
The woman then filed a complaint again, the authority spokesperson said. The family court of the Stade district court had already withdrawn parental custody from the father and given sole custody to the mother. The woman picked up her daughter in Turkey and brought her back to Germany. The penalty for kidnapping minors ranges from a fine to up to five years in prison.
Airport reopens normally
Hamburg Airport began normal operations as planned on Monday morning. The first planes took off for Lisbon and Frankfurt am Main at around 6:00 am, according to the flight plan published on the Internet. Additional machines should then follow at close intervals.
The first landing was scheduled for 7:25 am. According to the schedule, all machines should start working on Monday as scheduled. 152 takeoffs and 162 landings are planned for the day. The Federal Police, responsible for monitoring passengers and their luggage, also returned to normal operations. “We are working as normal,” said a spokesperson. The airport was closed for more than 20 hours because of the hostage crisis.
“Security concepts are continually reevaluated”
The airport also announced that it would expand its security concept. “We will implement new structural measures to strengthen possible access points to the security area,” a Hamburg airport spokeswoman said on Monday. Incidents such as hostage taking show that security concepts need to be continually re-evaluated. “This applies to all critical infrastructure, but also specifically to Hamburg Airport.”
For this reason, the security team on Sunday compared the airport’s security concept with current requirements in light of recent events. Security technicians “carried out initial checks and contacted the responsible authorities”. (APA/dpa)