Swiss Prosecutor Demands 7-year Prison Term for Frauenkhecht

A Swiss Federal prosecutor demanded a seven year prison term and a stiff fine today for Alfred Frauenknecht whose sale of plans for a Mirage jet engine to Israeli agents, the prosecutor claimed, seriously damaged Swiss interests abroad. According to the prosecuting attorney, Dr. Jacob Muller, a sentence of seven years at hard labor should be imposed if the five-man court finds the 44-year-old Army engineer guilty of treason under the Swiss military penal code. If he is found guilty on the lesser charge of passing military and economic information to Israel, the prosecutor said he would accept a six year sentence. Frauenknecht, a former employe of the Sulzer company, licensed manufacturers of the French Mirage C-3 for the Swiss Airforce, confessed to selling plans for the Mirage’s “Atar” engine to Israel for $200,000.

But he claimed he was not violating Swiss law. Defense Attorney Ernst Bucher disputed the prosecutor’s contention that Swiss interests were harmed in any way. He claimed that the information his client gave the Israelis was known by many other countries which possess or manufacture Mirage jets under license. The prosecutor insisted that “as a result of the Frauenknecht affair, Switzerland will in the future have great difficulty in obtaining modern military weapons, technical know-how or the license to build airplanes in Switzerland.” But he was relatively lenient toward the defendant’s cousin, Joseph Frauenknecht, who is charged with complicity in the affair. He recommended a ten-month suspended sentence in his case, but asked that each man be fined 5,000 francs ($900), deprived of his civil rights and dismissed from the Swiss Army.