Stage victory for the press: “Zeit” audio recordings are taboo for the court

epd | The audio recordings that the LKA seized from the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in connection with the trial against the “Block House” heiress Christina Block may not initially be used by the judiciary. According to information from Thursday, the Hamburg regional court decided this at the publisher's request. Der Spiegel first reported on the court decision.

On October 12th, the Hamburg regional court ordered a search of the editorial office of Die Zeit. In order to prevent the search, the editorial team released the requested documents and audio recordings, but at the same time filed a complaint against the order.

“In principle, the implementation of the contested decision is not inhibited by the filing of a complaint,” explained the regional court. But it could be suspended, which is what happened in this case. The justification is that the public interest in evaluating the recordings does not outweigh the fundamental rights of the time and the journalist concerned. You could “otherwise face serious disadvantages”.

The German Association of Journalists (DJV) welcomes the decision to prevent access to the seized audio recordings. Next, the district court must decide in the appeal process whether to maintain or change its original decision. If the regional court sticks to its decision, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court would be referred and would have to decide on the complaints.

Christina Block is accused of ordering the kidnapping of her two youngest children, who were staying with their father in Denmark. Zeit journalist Anne Kunze interviewed Block's children for the podcast “House of Block”, the first episode of which appeared at the end of September. The conversations took place shortly after the alleged kidnapping on New Year's Eve 2023 in a "safe house" in Denmark. Parts of it can be heard in the first podcast episode.