Rudolf Elmer support campaign

We will publish on this page the updated details of Rudolf Elmer's trial in appeal on November 17, 2011 and other news surrounding his case. If you are not familiar with this six-year long case you can find a summary here.
Among aberrations in this case, the prosecutor seems to believe that the initial sentence was not harsh enough: Read his rationale.
Defending transparency to expose and help stop malpractice or crime (allegedly tax evasion in this case) is never punished harshly enough, it seems.
It is worth mentioning that no Swiss investigation or prosecution whatsoever has taken place against alleged tax evaders Rudolf Elmer exposed, nor against bank Julius Baer, which according to Elmer was providing services to "help" tax evaders.

Note: Translations below are working documents to help non-German-speaking readers understand the main issues. Only the original documents are considered authoritative.

May 18, 2012, 1:00 a.m. Breaking: Zurich High Court judge decides to unseal the three "CASH" CDs! (If you missed the historyof the case see below.) This is a huge blow to Bank Julius Baer's case, to the Zurich prosecution office's slappy job (it colluded with BJB virtually in plain sight to throw Elmer in jail without a case), and to Swiss bank secrecy in general. Rudolf Elmer insisted on having a public trial (despite the pressure to do otherwise from BJB's lawyers and the Zurich prosecution office), which means that the content of the CDs will be made public during the trial.

May 13, 2012, 11:40 p.m. You can watch the program PlusMinus (in German) with an interview of Rudolf Elmer here.

May 3, 2012, 11:30 p.m. German-speakers: Don't miss Rudolf Elmer's interview on German TV show 'Plusminus', to be aired on May 9 2012 at 9:45 p.m. local time. Elmer will talk about the long pending Tax Treaty between Germany and Switzerland.

April 30, 2012, 1:50 p.m. The Council of Europe has passed two days ago the resolution combating tax evasion facilitated by bank secrecy jurisdictions like Switzerland (not named in the report, but topping the list of biggest tax havens on which the report is based). Although this resolution is not binding, it is quite influencial, and could end-up at the European Parliament.

See here an interview with one of the Swiss members of the Council of Europe which shows the hypocrisy and misleading arguments used by pro-secrecy profiteers to keep the status quo.

April 14, 2012, 12:50 a.m. "Le secret des banquiers suisses" ("The secret of Swiss bankers") of Radio Canada's investigation programme Enquête is now available online (in French).

April 9, 2012, 7:50 p.m. Everyone should get and read the e-book "Tax Heavens", based on Rudolf Elmer's story: it provides a unique insight into the inner workings of tax havens, and constitutes a shocking account on how a Swiss bank has turned the life of a whistleblower into a nightmare, with the complicity of prosecutors, judges and cops, and the passivity of politicians. It is also an account of the extraordinary courage and resilience of a man and his family, with the purpose of helping advance the fight for global justice.

March 30, 2012, 5:40 p.m. French-speaking Radio Canada's program "Enquête" will broadcast on April 5 2012 a story on tax evasion whistleblowers, including Rudolf Elmer.

March 14, 2012, 1:00 a.m. BREAKING: following Zurich's prosecution office's request, Bank Julius Baer did provide on January 10 2012 the CASH (from the name of the newspaper CASH, Switzerland's equivalent of the Finacial Times) CD allegedly holding data on its clients worldwide, according to the letter we publish here (an English in progress can be found here - if you speak Swiss German you can help us improve it!).
The order to provide the CD was given to the bank on December 20 2011, with a deadline on January 10 2012, and follows the November 17 2011 High Court decision in which the judge asked the Zurich prosecution office to rework on the case again since its job had been slappy up until that point. Indeed, the Zurich prosecution office was requesting that Rudolf Elmer be guilty of charge without even looking into the content of the CD, which (along with two other CDs, ESTV and KSTA, provided to the Swiss tax authorities by Elmer) is the main focus of the charges (violation of Swiss bank secrecy law).
The judge of the district court had already found Elmer guilty of the same charges on January 19th 2011, even though not the judge nor anyone else looked into the content of the CDs: a blatant miscarriage of justice. It was sufficient to the judge that Elmer had worked for two years under a Swiss employment contract when working in the Cayman Islands to convict him. Elmer's battle against bank Julius Baer and the Zurich county justice system has lasted six and a half years and counting, and it is only today that decision has been made to investigate the data on the three CDs in order to try to find evidence of Swiss bank secrecy violation.
The bank's execution of the order comes a bit as a surprise, as it puts it in the awkward situation where it seemingly gave up data of its own clients (some of which are, according to Elmer, tax evaders and convicted criminals), and consequently the bank sort of breaches (more figuratively than legally) the so far sacred Swiss bank secrecy rule. Indeed, the case stands a good chance of remaining public, in which case the content of the CDs (and the identities of the clients, including possibly celebrities) would be publicly revealed. Are bank Julius Baer's clients aware of this fact? How would they react if they were?
Bank Julius Baer's compliance is all the more surprising since the alternative would have been for the bank to just pay a 10.000 CHF (indeed, according to Swiss law a party can refuse to comply with a court order and pay a fine).

The three CDs are now sealed, and in order to unseal them a judge's decision is needed, which will likely take several more months. We will keep you informed of further developments.

February 11, 2012, 5:00 p.m. The Economist finally published an article on tax evasion and Swiss banking secrecy, mentioning Rudolf Elmer and Wikileaks. However the article doesn't mention the plight that Rudolf Elmer (or Wikileaks) endured; it just says "[Rudolf Elmer and Bradley Birkenfeld (another whistleblower)] have had legal troubles as a result." For more details on Rudolf Elmer and his family's ordeal read our interview with him. As for Wikileaks', visit their web page, and the page of our Free Assange Now campaign.

Note: if you speak German please consider helping us translate important pieces of Rudolf Elmer's case against Julius Baer and the Zurich Prosecution Office.

January 29, 2012, 1:00 a.m. We're publishing Zurich prosecution office's order to look into the content of the CDs (see below January 27's update), and its English translation. Many thanks to our supporter who made this translation possible. Another document awaits translation, if you speak German you can join the effort (platform kindly provided by anontranslator.eu).

As far as we know, bank Julius Baer has not yet provided the CDs to the prosecution. We will keep you updated.

English translation:

Prosecution Order to Investigate the CDs

Original order (in German):

Auswertungs-auftrag CD16012012

January 28, 2012, 11:30 p.m. The bank cited below is Wegelin, a bank that thought it was small enough to provide tax evasion services while going unnoticed.

January 27, 2012, 1:00 a.m. We're about to publish the court decision of the 17 November 2011 trial, in which the judge slapped the prosecution for its job on the case; and also Zurich's prosecution office's order to look into the content of the CDs... that Rudolf Elmer was sent to prison for, and which allegedly break Swiss bank secrecy law! Meanwhile, you can read the indictment of three Swiss bankers by US judge Rakoff, who takes his job and duty very seriously. It's an eye-opening (and also eye-popping) insight into how some Swiss bankers helped and gave advice to high-net worth US citizens to avoid their tax duties. Enjoy:

Frei Keller Berlinka Indictment 12 Cr 02 (JSR)

January 10, 2012, 10:00 a.m. Today, January 10 2012, is the deadline that the Zurich (Switzerland) prosecution office gave bank Julius Baer to comply with the November 17 2011 court decision, and provide the names of its clients whom it says were the subject of bank secrecy violation by Rudolf Elmer, that it sued in 2005.
The bank is facing a terrible conundrum: if it provides those names to the prosecution office, the latter will have to make them public (Rudolf Elmer insisted the case should remain public), and consequently not only those clients but all others who might know the same fate in the future will certainly remove their trust (and their money) from the bank in a wind of panic.
It would be quite an ironic situation, as the bank would do the same act as the one it went after Elmer for. And for which it also threatened to sue Wikileaks. Will we see bank Julius Baer the whistleblower, malgré elle?
Otherwise, if it chooses not to comply with the judicial order (which it can) it will face a 10.000 CHF (Swiss Francs) fine, not much regarding its financial might, but more importantly its relationship with the Zurich prosecution (which has protected the bank's interests while violating Elmer's rights in a shameful and blatant manner for six years, until last November 17's court decision injected some sense in the case) will probably be strained for a long time.
In both outcomes, as the fabrications, manipulations, and basic rights violations emerge, the case against Rudolf Elmer seems to slowly collapse, with each of the actors (bank Julius Baer and the Zurich prosecution office) having to play a different game, in which their own interests no more converge.
We'll keep you posted of any new development.
This case is all the more interesting to follow since Julian Assange is knowing the same kind of anti-whistleblower judicial persecution as the one Elmer went through so far. The collapse of this case, and the restoration of justice will certainly give both confidence to Assange's supporters and another hit to his persecutors in Sweden and the US, with the passive complicity of British, EU, and Australian authorities.

December 24, 2011, 11:30 p.m. Sorry for the long absence, there was no major update (except that Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf was elected President of the Swiss Confederation) and we were working on our Free Assange Now campaign.
We hear the tide is turning in this case. More information soon. We are also working on a publication that will improve the general understanding of this case by the public.

December 9, 2011, 6:30 p.m. Update: You may remember that we requested a comment from Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf on Elmer's case, especially since she was a recipient of a copy of his complaint against Julius Baer and members of the Federal Prosecution while assuming the position of Head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police (that she left on November 1 2011 for the equivalent at the Federal Department of Finance).
We received a reply on December 7 2011, which we do appreciate, however unfortunately not from Mrs. Widmer-Schlumpf, but from the Deputy Head of Legal and Complaints Service (although our message and its subject clearly stated that we were requesting a comment, not filing a complaint).
Regarding the content of the reply, it states that "the criminal proceedings against Mr Rudolf Elmer are the sole responsibility of law enforcement agencies and courts", which we would have agreed with, except for the fact that Elmer raised serious accusations against those same law enforcement agencies and courts. Who was going to look into that, if the Federal Councillor for Justice didn't? Does it mean that Swiss law enforcement agencies and courts do whatever they like, they will never be accountable to anyone about anything? So this element unfortunately doesn't really answer our request.
Also the reply mentions the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches, which we agree with (as it is supposed to avoid a single entity accumulating enough power to become a dictatorship) if it were really working that way in Elmer's case: what seems to have happened (make your own opinion on this by reading the relevant documents here) is even worse than a violation of the separation of powers, as it appears that the Zurich judicial branch has intentionally turned a blind eye on the alleged complicity of a corporation (bank Julius Baer) in tax evasion practices, while it went after the whistleblower, that it prosecuted for years without having a single clue on the content of the data at the origin of the accusations against him.
We get the impression that the Swiss government is hiding behind those same rules that are supposed to protect the small people from abuse (i.e. the separation of powers) in order to justify its inaction in a case as serious and (we believe) consequencial as Elmer's. This inaction may be interpreted by some as passive complicity.
Below you will find our request for comment to Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (sent by e-mail on November 22 2011, in English), the reply of the Deputy Head of Legal and Complaints Service (in German) and its English translation (using Google translate).

Request for comment to Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf:

Liberte-Info 20111122 Request for Comment to E Widmer-Schlumpf

The reply to our request, in the original Swiss German: Answer-To Liberte-Info 20111122 Request for Comment to E Widmer-Schlumpf Ger

The reply's translation to English (with Google translate): Answer-To Liberte-Info 20111122 Request for Comment to E Widmer-Schlumpf Eng

December 3, 2011, 10:45 p.m. Correction: it seems Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf wasn't part of yesterday's ARENA show as we initially heard. Sorry for that. She will most likely take part to next week's. We will keep you informed.

December 2, 2011, 8:30 p.m. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf seeks reelection (elections are to take place on Dec. 14 2011). Tonight at 22:00 local time she will be live on Swiss TV's political show ARENA where she will face her opponents.

December 2, 2011, 4:00 p.m. How high in the Swiss political sphere were people aware of Rudolf Elmer's case, and its shortcomings? It is interesting that Swiss Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf had to go to Brussels to be blamed by the EU regarding Switzerland's complacency (to say the least) with tax evasion. Why? Because we have a copy of Rudolf Elmer's letter to her, dating back to February 9, 2009, where he informed her of his complaint against Julius Baer filed with the Federal Prosecution Office (see Deputy Attorney General Ruedi Montanari's response to Elmer's complaint), and even attached a copy of it (we will publish this full complaint later).
According to Elmer, his letter remained unanswered.
We have contacted ten days ago Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf for comment. We didn't get a reply.
How is it that such a rigged case (remember, the court recently admitted that it didn't know whether Elmer could be prosecuted or not, because the data simply has never been seen by the prosecution!) has been dragging for six years without a top politician, who was officially aware of it, raising her eyebrow?

Below is the letter in the original German. Would you like to help us translate it to English? Get in touch.

Brief Bundesrätin Widmer Schlumpf 090211007

November 27, 2011, 11:00 a.m. Interesting article from Tagesanzeiger.ch: "EU now considering sanctions against Switzerland" picturing Swiss Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, and suggesting she wasn't too excited about going to Brussels to discuss the shaky tax practices reigning in her country.
Wait, the name Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf rings a bell... Stay tuned.

November 25, 2011, 8:00 p.m. (Zurich time) In 2005, Rudolf Elmer was put in jail for... revealing to Swiss tax authorities the existence of wide spread and actively supported tax evasion at bank Julius Baer's operations in the Cayman Islands (see summary of the case here). You'd wonder, what is the document that supported this decision to put a whistleblower in prison for pointing crimes? Here is the document. You will notice the following:

• It contains a blatant mistake as to the name of Elmer's wife (who made a statement before the prosecutor): Ranitha Rumarasamy is not someone Elmer seems to know. Who did the prosecutor hear then?
• This decision, which is supposed to carry some kind of importance, is simply signed by... the prosecutor's secretary!
• Also, Elmer remained in jail for over a month without a judge confirming the prosecutor's decision, which reflects the kind of outstanding power a prosecutor has in Switzerland.

Lesson to be learned: if you blow the whistle on tax evasion in Switzerland, it takes very little to put you in jail.

Below the original document, and its working translation (still subject to improvements).

Note: we have blanked the name and address of Rudolf Elmer's counsel.

November 25, 2011, 12:15 a.m. (Zurich time) In about twenty hours, we will provide you with evidence that Zurich's (Switzerland) justice system is no more professionnal than a banana republic's. If you live in Switzerland don't turn your TV on at 8:00 p.m. for the news hour; come here instead and see for yourself how little it takes to put a man in jail.
Correction: we earlier mentioned that the document we're about to publish is about the Swiss justice system; actually this is not accuate, as it is about the Zurich state justice system to be more precise (Switzerland is a confederation).

November 24, 2011, 12:40 a.m. We hear major international newspapers are about to publish their story on Rudolf Elmer's half-a-decade long fight for justice and truth, and against tax evasion and institutionalized cover-up. Meanwhile tweet, retweet and copy/paste this page everywhere: it's under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license!

November 21, 2011, 5 p.m. Update 1: All these Swiss-French newspapers – lematin.ch, letemps.ch, journaldujura.ch, bilan.ch, hebdo.ch, bluewin.ch, rfj.ch, swissinfo.ch, yatoo.ch, cboss.ch – now mention a "slap to the Zurich prosecution office" after the judge's decision that the indictment against Elmer was incomplete. If you Google "Rudolf Elmer giffle pour le ministère public zurichois" (giffle is slap in French), you'll find those articles, and more.

Update 2: You can find the original (i.e. in German) version of Elmer's background for his speech at the court here.

November 19, 2011, 10 p.m. Update 1: After the hearing ended without conviction and with the prosecution asked to work on the file all over again because of the lousy job, it is expected that the next court hearing will take place in several months. Meanwhile, we will continue posting pieces of interest in this case.

Update 2: Should this be read as a sign of destabilization of the Swiss bank/media collusion? The most conservative and "bank-friendly" Swiss newspaper NZZ reports on the hearing more or less accurately (excuse the Google translation).

November 18, 2011, 5:30 p.m. (Zurich time): We are publishing a document showing the kind of rubber-stamping process that Julian Assange denounced after it took place against himself. However, this time it is not the work of the Swedish justice system, but of the Swiss one, and it has hit Rudolf Elmer.
This document, dated February 20, 2009, comes from the Office of the Attorney General, and is signed by the Deputy Attorney General Ruedi Montanari. It is the long version of the letter received by Rudolf Elmer, informing him that the complaint he filed against Julius Baer and Co, the Zurich-Silh Prosecutor and the Zurich canton police is dismissed. It contains the Deputy Attorney General's rationale for rejecting Rudolf Elmer's charge. Hhowever, its details have been kept from Elmer (Montanari writes "Mister Elmer will be notified that the charges are dismissed.". However, he also explicitly requests establishing a court order "in writing (certified)" to Julius Baer & Co - see the end of the document).
This is just one of the many inconsistencies riddling this document. Here are more:

• In several instances, the Deputy Attorney General casts unreasonable doubts over the eligiblity of the accused to be investigated. For instance, he writes, "concerning the alleged bribery activities of Kurt Langhard and RA Christoph Hiestand, it is not obvious to what extent authorities are involved. Besides, because of insufficient international context and complexity, it would not fall under federal jurisdiction." So it won't investigate any further. This is clearly a twisted analysis and conclusion (Is it not his job to investigate missing elements? Can he not deal with complex cases?). It may suggest that the Deputy Attorney General did notwant to investigate those Elmer accused. Also, he writes, "the custodial judge Dr. E. Zweifel und lic.iur K. Ruesch may have been denounced by the district court of Zurich, but in the complaint it is not clear what for." Logically, Elmer should have been asked for more details.
• Montanari writes "There is no concrete evidence which demonstrates that money from criminal activities has been transferred via Switzerland, so a sufficient reference to Switzerland is missing" and further "a sufficient concrete suspicion against certain persons, a sufficient federal jurisdiction and a reasonable relation to Switzerland, according to the files, are missing."This did not stop the Swiss prosecution office of the Zurich canton from prosecuting Rudolf Elmer over alleged data about Julius Baer clients he gave Assange January 17 2011, resulting in imprisonment for 187 days without conviction. No one knows what was on the CDs Elmer gave Assange; Elmer says they were blank because it was a symbolic act.
• That the federal prosecution turned down Elmer's complaint without any option for appeal should be questioned. Is it acceptable in a democracy that just one body can make such a definitive decision for such serious alleged crimes?

On one hand, the prosecution finds the most illegitimate excuses to reject charges against those Elmer accused; on the other hand, the whistleblower is put in jail for six months without charges brought against him.

If you see other irregularities, e-mail them or tweet them to us.

Below is the original document (in German), and its English translation.

Note: We have erased the names of the Bank Julius Baer clients so that the attention doesn't get diverted from the true problem with Rudolf Elmer's case (and that of many other whistleblowers): Refusal of the justice system to perform its duty. Once it does, the names erased (and others, that Elmer said he transmitted to the Swiss tax authorities years ago) likely will be investigated.

English translation:

November 17, 2011, 10:00 p.m. (Zurich time): the hearing took the whole day, as it was expected to. However the news look pretty good: the judge questioned the applicability of Swiss law over the data, which he wants to finally look at (since 2005, the beginning of Rudolf Elmer judicial odyssey, no one but Bank Julius Baer and himself knew the content of those data), and made a public statement saying that the prosecution's office performed a poor job, and he asked them to redo their work.
Note that it took six years for a judge to decide to look at the data.
Here is one of the rare Swiss-media articles which seems to report honestly on today's hearing (translation).

November 17, 2011, 7:00 p.m. (Zurich time): the fourth attachment of Rudolf Elmer's plea and statement is now on-line (see below). Thank you for your patience.
The document is mostly in German, with parts in English. Full English translation is underway.

November 17, 2011, 9:30 p.m. (Zurich time): Liberté-info Exclusive: Rudolf Elmer's intended plea at the High Court of Zurich (in German). (There might be changes with the actual plea he gave at the court.) It is a short version of the statement that we published this morning (see below).

November 17, 2011, 8:00 p.m. (Zurich time): Rudolf Elmer has asked us to publish a statement regarding his trial, where he describes the big picture on why, and how, he got into a situation where he is fighting both the Swiss judicial system (at state level) and the bank Julius Baer.

Attachmentss can be found here:

1. http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?link=/documents/adoptedtext/ta10/eres1729.htm
2. http://www.whistleblower-net.de/content/view/242/1/lang,en/
3. http://www.whistleblower-net.de/content/view/242/1/lang,en/
4. Click here.

November 16, 2011, 11:50 p.m. (Zurich time) update: We are in possession of and about to publish a document that may suggest that the Swiss justice system has known for at least two years that it couldn't/shouldn't prosecute Rudolf Elmer over the data he made known about the bank operations in the Cayman Islands since it is not relevant to Swiss jurisdiction. Not only did they not inform Rudolf Elmer of this, but they informed the other party involved, bank Julius Baer and continued with his prosecution and jailing for banking secrecy law violation. Stay tuned (live updates on Twitter). More to come tomorrow morning (Zurich time).

November 16, 2011: A summary of Rudolf Elmer's case:
- Rudolf Elmer worked for bank Julius Baer from 1987 to 2003. During his last eight years at the company, he worked as COO and Compliance Officer in the Cayman Islands.
- In 1998 he started to seriously question the existence of tax efficient structures for Switzerland (as well as other countries), and the Julius Baer bank, as well as the existence and promotion of tax evasion and secrecy "services" for criminally convicted clients at Julius Baer. This questioning ultimately led to his firing in 2003. He says he was dismissed on the basis of an incompleted lie detector test.
- Elmer says threats and harassment took place from 2004 to 2005, by agents paid by Julius Baer. These threats started again in 2008 in Mauritius after he provided Wikileaks with data.
- In 2005, he was arrested for 30 days for violation of "Swiss banking secrecy" - for providing Swiss local and federal tax authorities with Cayman data allegedly showing tax evasion, for investigative purposes. The reason given is that Elmer was "under a Swiss employment contract". The message here is clear: if you are under a Swiss employment contract, Swiss judges will not hesitate to jail you if you come up with data suggesting malpratice in a tax haven like Cayman.
- In 2008 he gave documents to Wikileaks allegedly detailing Julius Baer's operations in Cayman possibly showing tax evasion, or worse (no further details available on that at the moment).
- The same year, he filed a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights against Article 47 of Swiss law on banking secrecy, stating that this article violates the constitutional rights of free speech.
- In January 2011 - six years after his imprisonment - he was prosecuted for threatening the bank Julius Baer to go public (which he admitted), for attempting to extort a payment of USD 50,000 from Julius Baer (which he denied), for handing over to Swiss local and federal tax authorities possible tax evasion-related data (which he did), and for the violation of secrecy law. (Strangely enough his handing over data to Wikileaks in 2008 was not included in the charges, but in 2011 he was imprisoned for 187 days for the symbolic act of handing seemigly empty CDs to Wikileaks' Assange on January 17 2011.) January 19 2011, two days after publicly handing the CDs to Assange, he was found guilty and sentenced to 240 days of jail or a 7,200 Swiss franc fine, but the sentence was suspended to two years probation. Believing the sentence unfair Elmer appealed the court's decision at the High Court of Zurich.
- Note that the prosecution had no proof about the content of the disks publicly given to Assange, which Elmer says were blank. He describes it as a purely symbolic act. Yet he remained 187 days in jail for that act, from January 19 until July 25 2011.
- His appeal's court decision will be heard November 17 2011.
- During all those years, Swiss authorities haven't investigated one single time Elmer's claims of Baer clients' tax evasion (with Baer's active involvement), supported by the data he gave the Swiss tax authorities. The tax commission of the State of Zurich II turned down the request of the Federal tax authorities and the prosecutor to have the data investigated. This raises serious questions on the commitment of that commission to carry out its role.

November 15, 2011 update 2: Elmer trial's judges:

• who is Judge Peter Marti? (article in German)
• who is Judge Rolf Naef? (article in German)

November 15, 2011 update 1: Below you will find a copy of the letter from the Office of the Swiss Federal prosecutor (in the original German, as well as the English translation) telling Rudolf Elmer that they decided "not to follow up" on the charges he filed against Julius Baer, one of its lawyers, a Swiss custodial judge, the office of the Zurich-Sihl prosecutor, the canton of Zurich police, and the office of the Zurich chief prosecutor.
What were the charges Rudolf Elmer filed against them? Stay tuned (live updates on Twitter).

Original document (in German; English translation is below):

English translation:

November 10, 2011 update: The Swiss prosecutor's rationale (go to page 2 of the English translation) for demanding a harsher sentence against Rudolf Elmer.
November 11, 2011 update: Note that the prosecutor wants to charge Rudolf Elmer with what she calls an offense: the fact that Elmer symbolically gave two CDs to Assange. The prosecutor doesn't have any proof on their content, and Elmer claims that the CDs were blank (go to minute 3:00 of the video).

Original document (in German):

Here the English translation (with the help of Walter Gehr - www.public-international-law.net, www.whistleblowing.at):

November 7, 2011: We publish here the details of Rudolf Elmer's trial in appeal at the High Court in Zurich to take place on Thursday 17 November 2011. Please show up to support Rudolf Elmer.

This information is subject to change.

November 11, 2011 update: a judge and the clerk have changed, update below.

Appeal  
Swiss and Wikileaks
Whistleblower, High Court Trial
 related to the Swiss Banking
Industry in Zürich, Thursday,
  November 17th, 2011, 0800

(Location: Klausstrasse 4, 8008 Zurich, Courtroom 2 moved to another larger court, ask once there)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Judges at the High Court will be
President:     Head Judge Peter Marti
Referent:       Judge Erwin Leuenberger
Co-Referent: Judge Claire Brenn Rolf Naef
Clerk: Huser Jasmin Stark 

Plaintiffs:
Winterthurs Prosecution Office representing Bank Julius Baer & Co. AG, GAM Holding AG, Curtis Lowell jun., Christoph Hiestand

Defendant: Rudolf Elmer  
Rudolf Elmer is accused of
1)   violating Swiss Bank Secrecy, e.g. publishing data on Wikileaks  
2)   violation of Swiss industrial secrecy laws
3)   coercion

Requested Verdict: "Convicted on all charges"
Prosecution Office Winterthur/Unterland wants to make the case that Swiss Bank Secrecy protects the data in the Cayman Islands and that based on a former employment agreement Swiss Bank Secrecy applies also to Rudolf Elmer working in the Cayman Islands.
Prosecution Office wants to make the case that Swiss industrial secrecy laws also apply to the Cayman Islands in the case of Rudolf Elmer and accuses him of disclosing Julius Baer’s secrets on how it uses the operation in the Cayman Islands providing Trust & Company, Mutual and Hedge Fund services as well as the administering of Special Purpose Vehicles e.g. offshore companies of Carlyle, Washington D.C. within the Julius Baer Cayman office.
Winterthur’s head prosecutor Dr. iur. R. Jäger requests an increased imprisonment from 8 to 12 months on probation, and newly a prohibition period of 3 years even though some complaints have been dropped at the Bezirksgericht Zurich. Dr. iur. R. Jäger concluded that punishment must be drastically increased. Dr. iur. R. Jäger argues that Rudolf Elmer is only out for revenge.

Further:
What did Rudolf Elmer precisely expose?
Rudolf Elmer's book is available in paper and electronic format.
Rudolf Elmer's website
Our interview of Rudolf Elmer.

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