Hamburg
Airport hostage takers in custody
Only after several hours of tough negotiations with the police did the 35-year-old hostage-taker give up. photo
© Bodo Marks/dpa
After the bloodless end of the hostage-taking, calls for more security were raised. While the airport is already taking the first measures, the hostage taker is standing before the judge.
Meanwhile, there are calls for stricter security precautions. Hamburg Airport has already announced structural measures. In addition, the act is said to have parliamentary repercussions.
The public prosecutor’s office provided further details about the process. According to the investigation, the Turkish citizen used a ruse to gain access to his ex-wife’s apartment in Stade on Saturday and forcibly abducted their four-year-old daughter, who lived there, in a rental car. The man is said to have threatened the 38-year-old, who had sole custody of their daughter and called for help, with a semi-automatic pistol and fired a shot into the air.
18-hour war of nerves
According to the information, the accused then drove the kidnapped child to Hamburg Airport, broke through a barrier there shortly after 8 p.m. and drove the car onto the airport apron. The public prosecutor’s office said he said he had a bomb in his vehicle and was demanding that he and his daughter leave the country for Turkey via the police emergency call. At the airport, the man fired three more shots from the pistol and threw two incendiary devices out of the car.
Only after around 18 hours of tough negotiations with the police did the 35-year-old give up. According to the public prosecutor’s office, in addition to the firearm, a self-made dummy of an explosive belt was seized. It was a book wrapped in aluminum foil with wires stuck into it.
Structural measures planned
As a first reaction to the crime, Hamburg Airport wants to increase security. “We will implement further structural measures to strengthen possible access points to the security area,” said airport spokeswoman Katja Bromm to the German Press Agency. At first she couldn’t say exactly what they would be. But it will “very soon be clear what exactly will go there”.
According to the airport, additional security measures are currently being introduced until the structural measures have been fully implemented.
Parliamentary clarification announced
Numerous politicians called for clarification and even stronger security measures – especially because this is not the first incident at the Hanseatic city’s airport. It was only in July that climate activists from the Last Generation group shut down the airport for hours after cutting a hole in the fence and making their way onto the airfield.
The CDU parliamentary group in the Hamburg parliament requested that the recent incidents be dealt with in the Interior Committee. “After the past disruptive actions of the climate glue, the hostage-taking at the weekend shows that the airport’s current security concept is not sufficient,” said the parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Dennis Gladiator.
The head of the SPD government faction in the citizenry, Dirk Kienscherf, also announced a parliamentary clarification: “It must now be clarified how the serious security breach could have occurred and what additional measures must be taken in the future.”
After the hostage-taking at Hamburg Airport, the federal government is relying on the local authorities to investigate the incident. In principle, German airports are very safe, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.
Not the first incident
The hostage taker had already been sentenced in spring 2023 to a fine of 3,600 euros for abducting minors, said Kai Thomas Breas, spokesman for the Stade public prosecutor’s office. The Turk took the girl to his homeland in March 2022. The mother filed a complaint, but then initially tried to settle the matter in other ways. The proceedings were therefore initially discontinued.
The woman then filed a complaint again on September 2, 2022, said the authority spokesman. Previously, in July, the family court of the Stade district court had withdrawn parental custody from the father and given sole custody to the mother. The woman picked up her daughter from Turkey on September 17th and brought her back to Germany.