Assange receives tax evasion records

A former senior Swiss bank executive said Monday that he had given WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange details of more than 2,000 prominent individuals and companies that he contends engaged in tax evasion and other possible criminal activity.

Rudolf Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss bank Julius Baer for eight years until he was dismissed in 2002, refused to identify any of the individuals or companies, but he told reporters at a news conference that about 40 politicians and “pillars of society” were among them.

He told The Observer newspaper over the weekend that those named in the documents come from “the U.S., Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia — from all over,” and include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates — from both sides of the Atlantic.”

Elmer handed two computer disks to Assange at the news conference, the first significant public event the WikiLeaks founder has held since he was arrested in London in early December after Swedish prosecutors sought to have him extradited on charges of sexual crimes there. He has denied the charges but was briefly jailed last year before bail was granted.

Assange said that WikiLeaks would verify and release the information, including the names, in as little as two weeks. He mentioned possible partnerships with financial news organizations and suggested he would consider turning the information over to Britain’s Serious Fraud Office.

Elmer, who previously provided documents from his former employer to national tax authorities including the Internal Revenue Service, said he had turned to WikiLeaks to “educate society” about what he considers an unfair system that serves the rich and aids those who seek to launder money.

“The man in the street needs to know how this system works,” he said, referring to the offshore trusts that many “high-net-worth individuals” use to evade taxes.

Bank Julius Baer, a 120-year-old institution that is usually noted for its privacy, said in a statement that it denied all wrongdoing and suggested that Elmer was pursuing a “vendetta” to “discredit Julius Baer as well as clients in the eyes of the public.”