HAMBURG, Germany — An alleged former Israeli spy was put on trial this month alongside an heiress to a well-known German chain of steakhouses who stands accused of ordering the violent kidnapping of two of her children from their father’s house.

Christina Block faces trial alongside her partner, the German television presenter Gerhard Delling, and a 35-year-old Israeli man, who allegedly took part in the kidnapping, among others.

Block, the 52-year-old daughter of the founder of Block House restaurants, looked visibly tense as she entered the higher regional court in Hamburg.

She is alleged to have organized the abduction at the end of a long-running custody dispute with her ex-husband, with whom she has four children.

The husband is said to have kept the two youngest children with him after an agreed visit in 2021 to his home in southern Denmark, close to the German border.

On New Year’s Eve 2023, the Israeli man and other suspects — some of whom are still on the run from authorities — are accused of ambushing the father at his Danish property and knocking him down.

The group allegedly dragged the two children, a boy and a girl aged 10 and 13 at the time of the incident, into a car and drove them away, according to the indictment.

The children, who resisted the alleged kidnappers, are said to have had their mouths taped, and the hands of one of them were tied.

The pair were held in a mobile home in the southwest of Germany until Block arrived to pick them up on January 2, 2024, prosecutors said.

Delling is accused of abetting the kidnapping effort and organizing Block’s return to Hamburg with the children.

The children were later handed over to police custody by a lawyer in the northern German city.

At the start of the trial, the prosecution said the children had been “tortured and brutally abused” during the alleged abduction.

Block’s defense rejected the charges against her, saying the businesswoman “at no point” gave others orders to carry out the kidnapping and that she had had no prior knowledge of it.

Block’s lawyer, Ingo Bott, said that the operation was more likely organized on the initiative of an Israeli security contractor working for the family of restaurateurs who sensed an opportunity for a reward.

According to German media reports, the Israeli suspect is a former member of the Mossad intelligence agency, but his lawyer maintains that speculation around his client was “baseless.”

The defense also claimed the father of Block’s children had illegally kept the two children and held them in Denmark.

Trial dates have been set through December. The two children remain with their father, who meanwhile was granted custody by a Danish court.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.