Hamburg
Airport hostage-taker becomes angry and loud during trial
The Hamburg airport hostage-taker must answer to the court for kidnapping minors, intentional bodily harm, weapons offenses and hostage-taking. Photo
© Ulrich Perrey/dpa
An armed man manages to break through to the tarmac of Hamburg Airport with his daughter in the car. He only gives up after 18 hours. During the trial against him, he has an outburst of anger.
With the help of emergency calls, videos and witnesses, judges have reconstructed the events of the 18-hour hostage-taking on Hamburg Airport reconstructed – interrupted by an outburst of anger from the defendant.
“What did we discuss there for 18 hours?” he suddenly shouted loudly and excitedly in the middle of the trial, after an interpreter translated. With that, he interrupted the presiding judge in the district court, who was just reading out documents from the investigation.
The prosecution accuses the 35-year-old of hostage-taking, kidnapping of minors, intentional bodily harm and various weapons offenses. The background to the crime was a long-running custody dispute.
Defendant freaks out
The defendant spoke angrily in Turkish, refused to be stopped by the judge and hit the table several times with his hand. What exactly he said at that moment remained unclear. After the man had calmed down and was once again paying attention to the proceedings, the judge appealed to him: “Can we agree that you stop freaking out like that?”
According to the interpreter, the defendant then replied that this had to do with the personality of the judge in the custody dispute at the time. In addition, he had already spoken a lot in the 18 hours at the airport. “Screaming and banging on the table doesn’t help anyone,” the presiding judge then stressed.
On November 4 last year, the defendant forcibly took his then four-year-old daughter from his ex-wife’s apartment in Stade, Lower Saxony, and drove with the child in a rental car onto the airport grounds by breaking through three barriers.
Detective: Much points to desperate act
“There are many indications that it was an act of desperation,” said the detective who led the investigation as a witness. The defendant repeatedly stressed that he was the father of the child and that, in his view, this could not be a kidnapping. One thing quickly became clear during the crime: “He made it clear to us right away that he was a threat,” reported the police officer.
The court viewed video recordings from Stade of the day the defendant used a trick to get the girl out of the apartment. The defendant’s cell phone data, which dealt with the topic of weapons, was also analyzed.
The 35-year-old’s first calls from the airport to the police emergency number were also played. He was difficult to understand and asked for a Turkish interpreter. An officer on the phone could be heard trying to calm the agitated caller and asking him not to endanger his daughter.
In the hours that followed, the man demanded that a plane take him and his daughter to Turkey, and spoke of a private jet. He fired three shots into the air and threatened to blow himself and the child up with an explosive belt. After he surrendered, the explosive devices turned out to be dummies. At the start of the trial, the defendant had largely confessed to the crimes.
The trial will continue on June 5.