Former Julius Baer private banker Rudolf Elmer
has been ordered to remain in police custody over alleged breaches
of Swiss banking secrecy laws after the whistleblower lost an
appeal.
Law firm Tethong Blattner, which represents
Elmer, said the Court of Appeals of the Canton of Zurich dismissed
Elmer’s appeal and the legal firm is now assessing Elmer’s next
course of action.
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Elmer was charged with breaching bank secrecy
laws for handing over confidential CDs that allegedly contained the
banking data of about 2,000 Julius Baer clients to Wikileaks boss
Julian Assange on 19 January. Elmer claimed this was an effort to
expose tax evasion by high net worth individuals.
Elmer’s arrest on January 19 occurred only
days after a highly publicised Wikileaks handover in London.
In an unrelated case, the former head of
Baer’s Cayman Islands trust business was charged with coercion and
leaking internal bank data in 2008 at a Swiss court on 19 January,
prior to his arrest. He was fined CHF7,200 ($7,517) and sentenced
to two years’ probation, a decision that was immediately
appealed.
Assange attacked Swiss authorities over the
arrest of Elmer, calling on investigators to focus on tax evaders
rather than whistleblowers.
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By GlobalDataTax evasion, often committed by placing money
in offshore banking structures, is believed to rob tax authorities
of up to $22 trillion worldwide.
Since the global financial crisis, tax
collectors have become increasingly aggressive in efforts to stamp
out tax evasion.
