The five-member Federal Court adjourned today until Friday morning to consider its verdict in the trial of 44-year-old Alfred Frauenknecht, an engineer charged with selling economic and military information to Israel. Frauenknecht confessed that he had supplied Israel with plans for a Mirage C-3 jet engine manufactured by the Sulzer Co. for the Swiss Air Force on license from a French firm. But he denied violating Switzerland’s penal code. Before the court adjourned, defense attorney Manfred Kuhn asked for acquittal on grounds that his client acted out of sympathy for Israel. He argued that the principle of “assistance to a person in danger” all other considerations and applies to states as well as individuals. He claimed that Frauenknecht considered Israel to be in danger because it was denied delivery of the 50 Mirage jets it had bought from France by the late President De Gaulle’s arms embargo. Yesterday, Federal prosecutor Jacob Muller asked the court to sentence Frauenknecht to seven years’ imprisonment at hard labor if found guilty under the criminal code. Muller contended that the sale of the engine plans for $200,000 damaged Switzerland’s interests abroad.
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