The 67-year-old Delling delivered a lengthy statement at Hamburg Regional Court. He said the case had affected his life “extremely” and asked the judges to hear his account impartially. He had already made a lengthy statement in September 2025.
Delling is one of seven defendants in the case concerning the alleged abduction of two of Christina Block’s children. Prosecutors allege that the 53-year-old Hamburg businesswoman hired an Israeli security company after a bitter custody dispute to take her then 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son from their father’s home in Denmark to Germany. The children were taken first to southern Germany and then to Hamburg. Block, daughter of Block House steakhouse founder Eugen Block, denies the accusations.
The children had lived with their father, Stephan Hensel, since the summer of 2021. After a weekend visit in August that year, Hensel did not return the former couple’s two youngest children to Hamburg. He cited allegations of violence, which Block denies; she in turn accused him of manipulating the children and alienating them from her.
Delling told the court the children were not afraid of their mother and were closely attached to her. He said he had never witnessed Block being violent toward them. He also described her distress over years without contact with her children in Denmark.
Prosecutors say Delling arranged Block’s meeting with her son and daughter in Baden-Württemberg on January 1, 2024, and coordinated their return to Hamburg. He is also suspected of giving false information to criminal investigators. Of the seven defendants, only a 37-year-old Israeli man has admitted the prosecution’s allegations.