14 NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT exports had been overstated with fraudulent intent, that the recipient firms abroad were either non-existent or ignorant of the whole affair and that the exporters had deposited the proceeds of the sales in Switzerland or Liechtenstein. To achieve this aim it had been necessary to reconstruct many business operations which had taken place over a period of several years, to check the routes followed by one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty railway trucks, to study a large number of Revenue Office files, to hear dozens of witnesses, some of whom had to be examined again after Rafael’s extradition, etc. Many of the witnesses lived abroad, for example in the Netherlands, Italy, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Africa and the Near East. The Republic of Austria had therefore been obliged to have recourse to the services of Interpol or to invoke the accords providing for mutual legal assistance which she had concluded with States such as the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The enquiries conducted in the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany and in Switzerland had in part taken place in the presence of Austrian officials and especially, as regards those in Switzerland, in the presence of Judge Leonhard, the Investigating Judge. Delays of from six to sixteen months had occurred between the sending of requests for legal assistance and the receipt of the results of the investigations which had taken place in the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and Switzerland. At the time of the closing of the investigation the request addressed to Switzerland remained pending on one point, with regard to which no positive result was, in the end, obtained, as the Swiss authorities were of the view (September 1964) that the professional duty of secrecy imposed on the Zurich bankers in question conflicted with the disclosure of the information sought. Liechtenstein’s reply was received in Austria only in June 1964. Firms under Soviet administration were also involved, especially at the beginning of the investigation: however, it was impossible to obtain documents from the Soviet Armed Forces Bank through which settlements had been effected. The course of the investigation seems to have been slowed down by the refusal of one of the accused - Herbert Huber - to make any statement whatsoever before the Investigating Judge. On the other hand, the proceedings relating to certain facts or accused had been severed by reason of their secondary importance (Section 57 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure); these seem to have been later abandoned (Section 34 (2) of the same code). At the time of the closure of the preliminary investigation, the number of accused in the case did not exceed ten. After 21 January 1963, the date of his last confrontation with Rafael, Neumeister was not heard again by the Investigating Judge who, during the same period, interrogated Rafael twenty-eight times (272 pages of minutes)