Guilty verdict for whistle-blowing Swiss banker

A SWISS court yesterday found former banker Rudolf Elmer, who handed over secret data to whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, guilty of breaching bank secrecy laws and handed down a suspended fine.

A judge 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.

Elmer was acquitted by the district court in Zurich of accusations of making a bomb hoax that were levelled by the public prosecutor during the one-day trial.