 In 1959 he was charged with spying for Israel; he was tortured, convicted, and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life and in 1962 he was released following diplomatic intervention by the West German government and many professional testimonials from around the world.By then almost the entire Jewish community in Alexandria and the rest of Egypt had been driven out by the regime.Broken by his experiences in prison, Dr Katz lived out the remainder of his life quietly in Switzerland and died while on a visit to Athens in 1969 at the age of 71.