By TONY PATERSON
BERLIN - The kidnapped 11-year-old heir to a German banking dynasty was found dead in a lake yesterday, four days after his family paid a €1 million ($2 million) ransom for him to be returned unharmed. Police have arrested the suspected abductor.
Jakob von Metzler vanished after getting off
a bus only metres from his home in the wealthy Frankfurt suburb of Sachsenhausen. He was returning from school.
An hour later his family found a ransom demand note on a path to their home. Police said they handed the cash to the kidnapper on Sunday and were given a guarantee that their son would be freed unharmed.
But after a search involving more than 1000 police with helicopters and tracker dogs the boy's body was found tied in a bundle in a lake near the city of Hanau, 65km east of Frankfurt. Early reports said he appeared to have been killed within hours of the abduction last Thursday.
Police have arrested a 27-year-old law student they believe is the sole kidnapper. They said he was already known to them. Earlier, they found €10,000 in notes in the student's flat. The student was said to have known the Metzler family and to have been in contact with Jakob several times.
A 4 1/2-day news blackout had been imposed by police in an attempt to guarantee Jakob's safety. The police had allowed the ransom money to be paid. After the boy failed to appear, police publicised the kidnapping and launched the search.
Friedrich von Metzler, Jakob's father, is chairman of the 300-year-old Metzler private bank, which has been in the family for 11 generations.
- INDEPENDENT
