Overview
- The victim, a man from the Netherlands, was lured to an apartment in Hamburg-Billstedt and held in a bathtub for eight days in June 2025 while guards watched him with pistols and knives.
- He escaped in only his boxer shorts through a back door, alerted neighbors and police, and a special police unit later secured the scene.
- The Landgericht Hamburg convicted two men on June 10, 2026, sentencing a 25-year-old to nine years and six months and a 27-year-old to ten years for hostage-taking, dangerous bodily harm and weapons offences.
- Judges found the motive was an escalated dispute over alleged drug debts and a scheme to force the visitor to lure a Mallorca-based drug dealer for a promised €10,000 reward.
- The court noted brutal mistreatment of the victim and the defendants’ criminal and addiction histories, and it ordered the younger man into a rehabilitation facility while an earlier 29-year-old accomplice received a 12-year term in February.