Hostage-taker uses rental car to drive onto the tarmac
The hostage-taker at Hamburg Airport used a borrowed car to break through a barrier and drive onto the tarmac. "The vehicle used was a rental car," said Rainer Bohmbach, spokesman for the Stade police station, on Monday. Whether the 35-year-old worked for a rental car company is unknown and unlikely. The armed man had seized his four-year-old daughter in Stade on Saturday and driven to Hamburg. Only after more than 18 hours of negotiations did he give up and hand over his child to special police forces.
According to the officers, the background to the abduction was a custody dispute. According to the Stade public prosecutor's office, the father had already been deprived of custody of his daughter in the summer of 2022. He was sentenced to a fine this spring for keeping the girl in Turkey against her mother's wishes.
The crime has triggered a debate about the security of German airports. It must now be investigated why the 35-year-old was able to break through the barrier-secured access road in the first place and could not be stopped earlier. "Whether the man may have been working at the airport is unknown here, but rather unlikely," said the Stade police spokesman.
The incident at Hamburg Airport raised concerns about airport security, as the hostage-taker managed to drive an air traffic-related vehicle, a rental car, onto the tarmac. Despite his criminal history, including a custody dispute and a fine for violating a court order, it remains unclear if he had any involvement in air traffic or the airport's operations.
Source: www.dpa.com
