20 Indians, including politicians, movie stars have Swiss accounts: Whistleblower
If Federal Court rules in
his favour, Rudolf Elmer would release data from Julius Baer bank
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NEWS : In
the quiet village of Rorbas, just outside Zurich, Rudolf M. Elmer has been
fighting a 12-year-long legal battle against the centuries-old traditions of
Swiss banking secrecy. Elmer, who ran the Caribbean operations of the Swiss
bank, Julius Baer, for eight years before being dismissed in 2002, was
part of the first wave of Swiss bank whistleblowers who helped expose the inner
workings of a system that helped the world’s rich and multi-nationals
conglomerates evade billions of dollars in taxes through offshore financial
structures and tax havens.
In 2011, he was tried for sharing
information about tax evasion, money laundering and other financial violations
with US tax authorities and WikiLeaks. Over the past six years, Elmer has been
imprisoned for 200 days, some of it in solitary confinement, and has fended off
an orchestrated harassment campaign against his family.
Things, however, may finally be
looking up. In 2016, the high court of Zurich turned down demands by the
prosecution to convict the 60 year old of breaching Swiss banking secrecy laws.
If the Federal Supreme Court rules in his favour (a decision one way or the
other is expected in the next three months), Elmer will release the Julius Baer
account data he still holds.
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