Whistleblower held for leaking tax cheats’ list
Jan. 20: Swiss police have arrested a banker who claims to have handed details of rich tax cheats to Wikileaks, prosecutors said on Thursday. Mr Rudolf Elmer was arrested late on Wednesday, shortly after a Zurich court found him guilty of coercion and breaking Switzerland’s strict bank secrecy laws in an earlier case. His home was also searched.
“He is in police detention and will be questioned on Thursday,” the Zurich chief prosecutor, Mr Peter Pellegrini, said. The 55-year-old former chief operating officer at private bank Julius Baer’s subsidiary in the Cayman Islands was found guilty of seeking to blackmail the bank, making threats and violating banking secrecy laws.
He was acquitted by the district court in Zurich of accusations of making a bomb hoax that were levelled by the public prosecutor.
Judge Sebastian Aeppli sentenced the former banker to a suspended fine of 7,200 Swiss francs (5,500 euros), noting that Elmer had “for years been a part of the banking world” and had “benefited” from this.
Prosecutors will have to decide by Friday whether to request Mr Elmer’s continued detention until the investigation is completed, he said.
Mr Pellegrini said the new probe centres on Mr Elmer’s trip to London on Monday, at which the former Julius Baer banker gave two data CDs allegedly containing account details of rich tax evaders to Wikileaks founder, Mr Julian Assange. The secrecy-spilling website has said it will examine the data before publishing any of it. Mr Elmer says he is trying to expose a widespread system of tax evasion by rich businesspeople and politicians using offshore branches of Swiss banks.
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