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The Public Prosecution requested, inter alia, the opening of the trial
before the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna, the calling of
thirty-five witnesses and the reading of the affidavits of fifty-seven
more.

22. On 3 June 1964, the Vienna Public Prosecution informed the
Judges' Chamber of the Regional Criminal Court that it was
provisionally discontinuing the proceedings against Neumeister in the
"Kreisverkehr der Textilien der Firma Benistex" case, although
reserving the right to resume them at a later date (Section 34 (2),
paragraph (1), of the Code of Criminal Procedure). At the time of the
laying of the indictment, the Public Prosecution had prevailed upon
the Court to sever these proceedings which had subsequently been dealt
with separately (26 d VR 2407/64).

On the same day, the Judges' Chamber, stating that the total loss
imputed to Neumeister had been reduced by more than four million
schillings, decided to reduce to one million schillings - either in
cash or in the form of a banker's guarantee - the amount of security
required for the release of the Applicant.

On 13 August 1964, Neumeister informed the Judges' Chamber that his
daughter, Maria Neumeister and another named person were prepared to
stand surety for him (Bürgen), the former putting up
850,000 schillings and the latter 150,000. The persons concerned
confirmed this on the following day. After carrying out a check on
their solvency (Tauglichkeit), the Judges' Chamber accepted their
offer on 16 September 1964. Some hours later the Applicant made the
solemn undertaking provided for by Section 191 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, deposited his passport with the Court in conformity with
the decision of 8 January 1964, which, on this point, was still in
force, and was set at liberty.

23. The various decisions concerning Neumeister's detention on remand
were all reached in accordance with Sections 113 (2) (first instance)
and 114 (2) (appeal) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, at the end of
a hearing not open to the public in the course of which the Public
Prosecution was heard in the absence of the Applicant and his legal
representative (in nichtöffentlicher Sitzung nach Anhörung der
Staatsanwaltschaft bzw. der Oberstaatsanwaltschaft).

24. On 9 October 1964, the date for the opening of the trial
(Hauptberhandlung) was fixed for 9 November.

On 18 June 1965, after one hundred and two days of the hearing, the
Regional Criminal Court of Vienna, constituted as a mixed lay and
legal court (Schöffengericht), postponed the completion of the trial
indefinitely so that the investigation might be completed. Having
received a number of requests from the Public Prosecution and from
some of the accused including Neumeister, it gave effect to several of
them and ex officio called for certain additional measures of
investigation to be taken. Herbert Huber's attitude seems to have
played a major part in making this supplementary investigation
necessary: whereas during the preliminary investigation he had
maintained a strict silence, he explained his conduct in detail before
the judges; according to Neumeister, Huber's statements were
favourable to him while highly incriminating as regards Rafael. The
Court nevertheless indicated that, in its opinion, some of the new
enquiries and hearings of witnesses ordered by it should have been
conducted earlier during the preliminary investigation.

25. In February and July 1965, Neumeister made the journey to
Strasbourg with the permission of the Regional Court, in connection
with the application filed by him before the European Commission of
Human Rights. His passport is said to have been restored to him some
days before the second of these journeys.

26. The additional investigation could not be conducted by Judge
Leonhard who had appeared before the Court as a witness, (Section 68
of the Code of Criminal Procedure): it fell to his permanent
substitute. It lasted for more than two years and was not therefore
completed until after the adoption, on 27 May 1966, of the
Commission's Report. The Investigating Judge examined numerous
witnesses including Alfred Neumeister, the Applicant's brother
(13 December 1966), had experts' reports drawn up, had resort to the
services of the Exchequer, the Vienna Economic Police, and the police,
the Post Office, Interpol, Swiss and German authorities, etc. The
accused do not seem to have been examined again.

On 8 March 1966, the Regional Criminal Court of Vienna informed
Neumeister that a decision of the same day had, in pursuance of
Section 109 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, discontinued
(eingestellt) the proceedings instituted against him in respect of two
of the counts. The amount of the loss imputed to the defendant was
reduced by about 370,000 schillings.

27. The trial was resumed before the Regional Criminal Court of
Vienna on 4 December 1967. According to the information supplied to
the Court by the Government, it should last for between four and
six months.

28. In his application instituting proceedings of July 1963
(No. 1936/63), the text of which was produced by the Commission at the
request of the Court, Neumeister claimed:

- that he had been arrested and detained without there being
"reasonable suspicion" of his having committed an offence and without
there being grounds for it to be "reasonably considered necessary" to
prevent his fleeing (Article 5 (1) (c) of the Convention)
(art. 5-1-c);

- that he had reason to doubt the impartiality of those persons who
were competent both to pronounce upon his continued detention and also
to conduct the investigation (Article 6 (1)) (art. 6-1);

- that the procedure followed in the examination of his requests for
provisional release did not conform with the requirements of
Articles 5 (4) and 6 (1) and (3) (b) and (c) (art. 5-4, art. 6-1,
art. 6-3-b, art. 6-3-c) ("equality of arms"; Waffengleichheit);

- that he had been neither brought to trial "within a reasonable time"
nor released pending trial. On this point, the Applicant in
particular alleged that the Investigating Judge, who was required to
deal simultaneously with several important cases, was no longer able
to accomplish his task "within a reasonable time" within the meaning
of Articles 5 (3) and 6 (1) (art. 5-3, art. 6-1) of the Convention.

Neumeister complained, inter alia, of the decisions given some months
earlier by the Judges' Chamber of the Regional Criminal Court of
Vienna and by the Court of Appeal.

In the course of a hearing before the Commission, the Applicant's
lawyer also invoked Article 5 (2) (art. 5-2) of the Convention,
affirming that his client had not been informed in detail and in
writing of the charges against him.

The Commission decided upon the admissibility of the Application on
6 July 1964. It rejected, on the grounds of their being manifestly
ill-founded, the complaints based on paragraphs 1 (c) and 2 of
Article 5 (art. 5-1-c, art. 5-2) of the Convention, but declared the
Application admissible in so far as it was based on Articles 5 (3),
5 (4) and 6 (1) (art. 5-3, art. 5-4, art. 6-1) ("reasonable time" and
"equality of arms"); it did not consider it necessary to pronounce
upon the alleged violation of Article 6 (3) (art. 6-3) as the
Applicant had not pursued this point.

29. Following the decision declaring admissible a part of the
Application, a Sub-Commission ascertained the facts of the case and
unsuccessfully sought a friendly settlement (Articles 28 and 29 of the
Convention) (art. 28, art. 29).

30. Invoking Article 5 (3) (art. 5-3), the Applicant maintained before
the Commission and the Sub-Commission that his detention on remand had
lasted longer than was reasonable. In support of his contention he
repeated many of the arguments he had put forward before the
Investigating Judge, the Judges' Chamber and the Court of Appeal of
Vienna (see above). He also claimed that his second detention could
be justified neither by the statements made about him by Lothar Rafael
early in 1962 nor by the fact that Walter Vollmann had absconded; in
particular he pointed out that Rafael's extradition
(on 21 December 1961) had taken place more than six months before his
own re-arrest (on 12 July 1962). According to the Applicant the
position seemed in fact to be very much more in his favour at the time
he lodged his Application (on 12 July 1963) than when he was first
released (on 12 May 1961), this being due largely to his acquittal on
29 March 1963 in the Customs fraud case and the substantial reduction
in the amount of the loss for which he was said to be responsible in
the case against Rafael and others. The competent legal authorities
were said to have disregarded this change for the better by
prohibiting the Applicant from going to Finland again,
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