6 NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT The confrontation between Neumeister and Rafael took place before the Vienna Economic Police on 10 and 11 July 1962. It appears from the twenty-two pages of minutes that Neumeister persisted in his denials. On the morning of 12 July, the Investigating Judge informed Neumeister that his departure for Finland, planned for 15 July, met with the opposition of the Public Prosecution. When heard as a witness, on 7 July 1965, by a Sub-Commission of the European Commission of Human Rights, he gave the following fuller particulars on this point: "What I am going to say now is rather more difficult for me. My own intuition convinced me that Mr. Neumeister would come back from his trip to Finland. Mr. President, members of the Commission, you know that a judge cannot let himself be ruled only by intuition; he must be guided solely by the law. Since no treaty on judicial assistance or extradition exists as such between Austria and Finland, the law obliged me not to yield to my intuition that Neumeister would return. I know that I said to Mr. Neumeister then: ‘My feeling tells me that you will come back; but I cannot personally give you permission without the approval of the prosecuting authority’. This approval was then refused." The Applicant, for his part, alleged before the Sub-Commission that the Investigating Judge had given him permission to go to Finland despite the wish of the Public Prosecution that he should not. 12. Be this as it may, on the same day, 12 July 1961, at the request of the Public Prosecution, the Investigating Judge ordered Neumeister’s arrest. The warrant (Haftbefehl) indicated first that Neumeister was suspected of having committed, between 1952 and 1957 and in consort with Lothar Rafael and other suspects, a series of fraudulent transactions which had caused the State a loss of some ten million schillings. It added that Neumeister, being fully aware of the charges assembled against him since his release (12 May 1961), must anticipate a heavy punishment; that his former employee, Walter Vollmann, for whom the results of the investigation had been less heavily incriminating, had nevertheless evaded prosecution by absconding; that the recent interrogations of the Applicant and his confrontation with Rafael had shown to him beyond any doubt that he would now be obliged to relinquish his attitude of total denial; that he intended to take his holidays abroad and that the withdrawal of his passport would not have offered an adequate safeguard, the possession of this document no longer being necessary for the crossing of certain frontiers. From these various circumstances the warrant deduced that there existed, in the case, a danger of flight (Fluchtgefahr), within the meaning of Section 175 (1) (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Neumeister was arrested on the afternoon of 12 July 1962 near to his office. He immediately requested the elder of his daughters, Maria Neumeister, to cancel by telegram the tickets which he had booked for the crossing of the Baltic. He stated to the police officers who were sent to take him into custody that it had been his intention to visit the Public