WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two computer discs that a Swiss banker handed over to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with public fanfare last winter and that contributed to his arrest days later contained no secret banking data at all, two of the banker’s associates have told Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two computer discs that a Swiss banker handed over to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with public fanfare last winter and that contributed to his arrest days later contained no secret banking data at all, two of the banker’s associates have told Reuters.
At a widely covered news conference in London in January, Rudolf Elmer, former head of the Cayman Islands office of Switzerland’s Julius Baer private bank, gave Assange what he said were two discs containing information on about 2,000 offshore banking clients. After the press conference, Elmer returned to Switzerland, where authorities in Zurich Canton soon detained him.
At the time of his arrest, Zurich police and prosecutors issued a joint statement saying they were “checking to see whether Rudolf Elmer has violated Swiss banking law by handing the CD(s) over to WikiLeaks.” The Zurich prosecutor’s office confirmed on Friday that Elmer was still being detained without charge while an investigation continues.
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But two of Elmer’s associates who were present at the London press conference now say the discs Elmer handed over to Assange contained no confidential banking data.
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