GERMANY: A four-day kidnap drama ended in tragedy yesterday when German police found the body of a wealthy banker's son kidnapped for a €1 million ransom.
The body of 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler was discovered in the woods near Frankfurt yesterday afternoon. He was kidnapped on the way home from school on Friday morning. Frankfurt police are questioning a 27-year-old student they believe was behind the kidnapping.
News of the kidnapping emerged only yesterday after a weekend news blackout.
The drama began on Friday morning when a school friend saw Jakob get off a bus at his usual stop in the Frankfurt suburb of Sachsenhausen. Police believe he was abducted shortly afterwards by someone who knew his school route.
Less than two hours later a ransom note was sent to the boy's father, Mr Friedrich von Metzler (59), head of the Metzler Bank, Germany's largest private bank.
Jakob was heir to his father's banking fortune.
Mr von Metzler paid the ransom on Monday, but his son was not released. Police believe that Jakob was already dead at this point, killed just hours after he was kidnapped on Friday.
Police arrested three men and one woman over the weekend, but by yesterday afternoon had released all but one suspect. He is said to be a 27-year-old law student who is known to police in Frankfurt for minor offences. One unconfirmed report said the man acted as an after-school tutor to Jakob.
One of the suspects told police that Jakob was being held in a hut in the Langener woods, south of Frankfurt. Over 1,000 police officers, some with sniffer dogs, spent nearly two days scouring the woods without success.
Yesterday afternoon police said they had discovered a "bundle with the contours of a human body" in a lake north-east of Frankfurt, which they later identified as that of Jakob.
Police sealed off an apartment near the von Metzler family home yesterday and found over €25,000, which they said was part of the ransom money.
Mr von Metzler is the 11th generation in his family to head the bank, which was founded in 1674. It employs 650 people in Frankfurt and has offices around the world, including in Dublin.
