Abductors of Press Lord’s Grandson Sentenced to Prison

MUNICH, West Germany — The Munich High Court on Tuesday imposed a four-year prison term on the leader of a group that kidnapped the grandson of the late newspaper magnate Axel Springer.

The court’s youth division found Robert Tilitzki, 23, guilty of being the ringleader of a group of three West German men and a Greek woman who abducted Sven Axel Springer from his luxurious Swiss boarding school last January and demanded a ransom of $5.68 million.

The other members of the group were jailed for terms ranging from two years, three months to three and one half years.

Sven Axel Springer, whose publisher grandfather Axel Springer died last month, was found unharmed three days after being abducted. The ransom was never paid.