NEUMEISTER v. AUSTRIA JUDGMENT
9
for about a quarter of an hour. A page and a half of minutes were taken on
this occasion.
16. On 12 July 1963, the same day as that on which he lodged his
application with the European Commission of Human Rights, Neumeister
filed a third request for provisional release to which he added a supplement
on 16 July; he pledged himself to make the solemn undertaking (Gelöbnis)
laid down by Section 191 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and once again
offered to provide, if need be, a bank guarantee of 200,000 or 250,000
schillings. While reiterating his earlier arguments, he observed:
- that between his release (12 May 1961) and his second arrest (12 July
1962), he had always held himself at the disposition of the Investigating
Judge, had presented himself of his own free will before the latter on five or
six occasions to obtain information concerning the progress of the
investigation and had informed him as far back as March 1962 of his plan to
make a journey to Finland;
- that the Austrian railways had authorised him to construct near the
Vienna east railway station, a warehouse worth one and a half million
schillings, a project which he had been unable to accomplish because of his
imprisonment;
- that since the imprisonment no new charge had been uncovered against
him;
- that Lothar Rafael, having made a number of confessions
(Geständiger), was seeking to improve his own lot by casting his guilt onto
others and that his statements were completely uncreditworthy;
- that after more than one year of detention on remand, the assumption of
there existing a danger of flight was no longer plausible.
The Investigating Judge rejected the request of 23 July 1963. He was of
the opinion that the grounds stated in the decisions of 31 July 1962, 10
September 1962, 27 December 1962 and 19 February 1963 retained their
relevance and that the documents in the file in substance corroborated
Rafael’s accusations against Neumeister.
The latter then lodged with the Judge’s Chamber of the Regional
Criminal Court of Vienna, on 5 August 1963, an appeal in which he restated
many of the arguments summarised above to which he added others, in
particular the following:
- considering the size and complexity of the case, the investigation and
the subsequent proceedings would seem to be of considerable length with
the consequence that the length of the detention on remand, already greater
than fourteen months, was in danger of exceeding that of the possible
sentence, if remedial measures were not speedily taken;
- the Investigating Judge had failed to answer several of Neumeister’s
arguments and to specify the documents which seemed to him to support
Rafael’s statements, which were in any case most likely to be withdrawn
sooner or later;