Swiss WikiLeaker gets $7.5k fine

Former Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer, who on Monday handed Julian Assange a CD containing details of tax evasion by the wealthy, has escaped a jail term after facing a Swiss court on Wednesday.

Prosecutors for the Swiss bank Julius Bär accused its former employee of breaching Swiss banking secrecy laws over a previous leak to WikiLeaks.

The prosecution aimed to secure an eight month sentence against the former banker.

They alleged that Elmer stole the bank's client data after being fired from its Cayman Islands operations.

Elmer personally handed the CD to Assange at a press conference earlier this week.

The former banker was fined 7,500 Swiss Francs (AU$7,500) and handed a two year suspended sentence.

Elmer previously claimed that his leaks were to "educate society" by exposing the instruments of tax evasion used by the wealthy.

However, according to a Swiss report, Judge Sebastian Äppli did not buy Elmer's claim and said his motivation for leaking information was revenge for being fired in 2002, noting that Elmer had quietly profited from that part of the banking world for years.