Joseph Ben-Gal and Dr. Otto Joklik, the two alleged Israeli agents charged with attempting to coerce Dr. Paul Goercke, a German scientist, into quitting his work for Egypt on non-conventional weapons, were found guilty by a Basle court today and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment each. The sentence is retroactive, to be offset by the time already served by the two men. The two were released immediately.
The verdict was issued by the court composed of six Judges who retired for several hours to study the evidence. The prosecutor, in his summary yesterday, asked for a three-month suspended sentence for Ben-Gal and for a 100-day suspended sentence plus a fine for Dr. Joklik.
The two defendants were arrested March 2 on charges of trying to coerce Dr. Goercke by threatening his daughter Heidi. She testified at length at the start of the trial. Her brother, Reiner, also was a prosecution witness.
Dr. George Brunschvig, the defense counsel for Ben-Gal, paid tribute today to the prosecutor, Dr. Karl Wiegand, for his “moderate and human” summation in which the prosecutor expressed sympathy for Ben-Gal’s motives. The attorney then attacked West German officials for permitting Heidi Gcercke to go to Switzerland for the meeting in the Three Kings Hotel where the defendants allegedly threatened her.
The attorney said it would have been wiser for the German officials to have advised the daughter not to go to Basle. He charged that what the West Germans really wanted was to use “the Basle affair” to investigate their own “mystery cases” of outrages perpetrated against Dr. Hans Kleinwachter, an electronic expert, who was the target of an assassination attempt last February 20, and Dr. Heinz Krug, Munich rocket specialist, who was abducted last year.
ATTORNEYS HAD ASKED COURT TO IMPOSE MINIMUM TERMS ON PROBATION
Turning to Miss Goercke’s testimony, Dr. Brunschvig asserted that she had repeatedly contradicted herself. He asserted that Ben-Gal had not needed to threaten her, as she had testified, because she and her family were anxious that Prof. Gcercke leave Egypt and return to West Germany. Moreover, the attorney contended, Ben-Gal did not make any threats but only said that if Dr. Goercke continued his work in Egypt, he might some day be subject to trial as a war criminal.
Dr. Brunschvig cited repeated instances of conflicts in Miss Goercke’s testimony before including Reiner Goercke in his denunciation. He recalled Reiner’s testimony that he could tell a Jew by his “thick stubby fingers. ” He asked the court to acquit Ben-Gal and that if the court deemed it necessary to find Ben-Gal guilty, that it impose a “minimum term on probation.”
Dr. Karl Senn, attorney for Joklik, then presented his summation, also accused Goercke of being an untruthful witness. He asked the court to drop the coercion changes against his client and sentence him to “a maximum of ten days’ imprisonment on probation” on the charge to which he had pleaded guilty, that of having illegally re-entered Switzerland after having been expelled.
The prosecution presented four additional prosecution witnesses. One was Mrs. Doris Amedez, a friend of the Goercke family. The others were three Basle policemen who secretly watched a meeting on March 2 between the two defendants and the Goercke family. Mrs. Amedez said that Ben-Gal warned Miss Goercke that unless her father leaves Egypt and returns to West Germany, “human lives will be lost. ” She also testified that Ben-Gal took a threatening attitude but she was unable to give a coherent explanation of what took place at the meeting in detail.
One of the three Swiss policemen testified that the meeting, which he was able to see but not hear, seemed to be “a normal business meeting” where passions did not rise and through which a courteous attitude had been adopted. Another detective said that no tape recordings were made of the meeting but that pictures were taken by Swiss secret police. It appeared that the police had acted at the request of German authorities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
