WikiLeaks promises Swiss banking secrets revelations

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 17, 2011 -- Updated 1233 GMT (2033 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW:WikiLeaks could publish the documents within weeks, Julian Assange says
• Rudolf Elmer says he has a right to stand up if he sees something wrong
• The Swiss whistle-blower hands over papers to WikiLeaks
• Elmer and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are fighting Swiss banking secrecy

London (CNN) -- A Swiss whistle-blower Monday handed over what he said were secret Swiss banking records to WikiLeaks, the website dedicated to revealing secrets.

Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer handed two discs to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a press conference in London.

WikiLeaks could release secret Swiss banking records it received Monday in "a matter of weeks" if it can process them quickly enough, Assange said.

Elmer said he would not reveal the names in the records, and said he was unable to say how many people were covered.

Elmer describes himself as an activist/reformer/banker.

"I think, as a banker, I do have the right to stand up if something is wrong," he said Monday, explaining why he was giving the documents to the website.

Elmer is due to go on trial Wednesday in Switzerland for violating the country's banking secrecy regulations.

He said he wanted "to let society know what I do know and how this system works because it is damaging our society in the way that money is moved" and hidden in offshore jurisdictions.

He began looking into the issue when he was a banker in the Cayman Islands, he said.

When he first looked into the problems of offshore banking he said it looked like "a mouse tail," but as he investigated in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, it became a "dragon's tail," and finally a many-headed dragon.

Elmer will not reveal names, lawyer Jack Blum said Monday, saying it was not always possible to determine who, if anyone, had engaged in "criminal tax evasion."

Elmer aims to "challenge Swiss Bank Secrecy at the European Court of Human Rights and the Swiss courts," he says on his website. He has worked at six offshore banking centers, he says.

Elmer and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange worked together on a complaint against Swiss banking secrecy at the European Court of Human Rights in 2008.