Spy Suspect Is Part of Trade, U.S. Aides Say

An accused Czechoslovakian spy and his wife will be traded next week by the United States as part of the package to win freedom for Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky, ending a case that could have embarrassed the FBI and the CIA, Administration officials said Friday.

The multination trade will include Karl F. Koecher, 52, charged with passing classified CIA documents to the Czechoslovakian Intelligence Service from 1973 to 1975, and his wife, Hana, 42, according to the officials, who declined to be identified. Both are naturalized American citizens.

Four persons will be released to the West in the exchange Tuesday, including Shcharansky, who will go to Israel. Officials here refused to identify the other other three, but one source said “they’re not household names.” Another said that Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov is not involved in the trade.

None of the Westerners being released by the Soviets are U.S. citizens, and no money will be given to the Soviets in connection with the exchange, the sources said.

An FBI affidavit filed in 1984 in the Koecher case charged that Hana Koecher received money from Czechoslovak agents and attended clandestine meetings in New York, Vienna and Czechoslovakia, where she and her husband allegedly were instructed on penetrating U.S. intelligence services.

A Contract CIA Translator

But only Karl Koecher, who worked as a contract translator for the CIA from February, 1973, to August, 1975, was charged with conspiring to deliver national defense documents to Czechoslovakia. Koecher’s wife was held as a material witness.

Government sources said that the Justice Department, over FBI objections, refused to charge Hana Koecher with the crime because FBI agents had interrogated her for 20 hours in a New York-area motel, without ending the questioning when she asked for an attorney. It is standard practice, required by the Constitution, for FBI agents conducting criminal investigations to halt questioning when the subject asks for a lawyer.