One of two suspects wanted for questioning by Swiss police in connection with alleged fraud and forgery left the State as soon as the investigation began, a money-laundering trial has heard. Mr Adrian Junker, a Swiss criminal lawyer and magistrate told Judge Patrick Moran at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday he had been unable to contact him. He had interviewed the other suspect, Mr Peter Jehle, son of one of the defendants. Ms Maria Bernadetta Jehle (47), and Mr Gunther Hollman, both of The Priory, Ballymore, Cobh, Co Cork, each deny two charges of handling money knowing it was the proceeds of other people's criminal activity in 1996 and 1997.
Mr Junker also interviewed Ms Jehle, not as a suspect but as "a person who could give assistance". He also wrote to the Union Bank of Switzerland re questing certain information about bank accounts, as al lowed under Swiss criminal law. The court was also told of the arrest of the defendants and their detention for questioning in Midleton, Co Cork, on May 16th and 17th, 1997.