ANKARA 

The former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, Jacob Perry, is under investigation in Germany over his role in a plot to abduct the children of German heiress Christina Block, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

Block, the heiress to Germany’s Block House steakhouse chain, with a fortune estimated at hundreds of millions of euros, is on trial for ordering the kidnapping from her ex-husband.

Police believe that “Block and her partner, a former television sports presenter, hired an Israeli business intelligence company in 2023 to carry out the abduction,” Haaretz newspaper said.

According to the daily, prosecutors told the court in Hamburg that August Hanning, the former head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, “contacted Perry last year on Block’s behalf and asked him to put together a team to kidnap her children from their father, who claims that staying with their mother puts them in danger.”

Hanning denied any involvement, telling the German newspaper Bild that he “never contacted Perry.”

The report said that the kidnappers “hit the father and dragged his 10-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter into a forest and through a stream before putting them into a car.”

“The children’s mouths were taped shut and one of them was tied up. It was also claimed that the kidnappers threatened to kill the children if they made noise," it added.

According to Haaretz, one of the hijackers, an Israeli, was arrested in the Greek Cypriot Administration, and extradited to Germany, where he is currently on trial.

Two other Israelis suspected of involvement have fled Germany, the daily reported.

Perry, 81, told the German court he “would agree to testify about Hanning’s role in the case if he was granted confidentiality.”

During the trial, the father’s lawyer asked Block if she knew Perry’s name, “and she remained silent.”

According to German news website Der Spiegel, Perry’s involvement was carried out “in his capacity as president of the business intelligence company CGI Group.”

The company’s founding CEO, Zvika Nave, denied his company’s involvement in the plot.