MADRID
- Spanish authorities temporarily
released a whistleblower in a major banking tax evasion scandal Thursday while
a judge decides whether to extradite him to Switzerland, where he faces a
5-year prison sentence for economic espionage.
Herve
Falciani, a former technology specialist at a subsidiary of HSBC bank, was
arrested by Spanish police on Wednesday as part of a yearslong Swiss effort to
detain him. Falciani, a French citizen, was tried in absentia in Switzerland
and has not made himself available to Swiss authorities.
A Swiss
court ruled in 2015 that Falciani illegally leaked a massive amount of account
information that led to a global wave of tax evasion probes. Falciani also was
convicted of illegally obtaining data and breaching business confidentiality
and bank secrecy.
In Madrid
on Thursday, a National Court judge released Falciani from custody, but
confiscated his passport, limited his freedom of movement within Spain and
ordered him put under police surveillance.
Anti-corruption
activists consider Falciani a crucial whistleblower whose more than 100,000
records on prominent clients of HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA led to probes in
several countries of alleged tax-dodging by wealthy people around the world.
The data,
allegedly detailing accounts worth $100 billion, first emerged in press reports
in 2008. Falciani then released the information to French tax authorities, who
later shared it with Spain and other governments.
Falciani
moved to Spain and cooperated with prosecutors there in some of the probes. He
was arrested in Barcelona in 2012, but Spain's National Court denied a Swiss
request to extradite him on the grounds that breaking secrecy laws was not
subject to prosecution in Spain.
His arrest
in Madrid came nearly two years after Falciani's conviction was made final by
Swiss courts.
It also
coincided with Spain's efforts to seek extradition from Switzerland of Marta
Rovira, a prominent Catalan separatist politician considered key in the Spanish
region's illegal independence bid. Swiss authorities have not ruled yet on
whether she should be extradited.
Spanish
Minister of Justice Rafael Catala said the government had no involvement in
Falciani's arrest and that no connection should be made between the two cases.
"These
are judicial cases sought in the realm of international cooperation,"
Catala said Thursday. "We shouldn't see into it more than that."
Confusion
surrounded the origins of the new effort to bring Falciani into custody.
Lawyer Marc
Henzelin, who represents Falciani in Switzerland, and Spanish police said Swiss
authorities asked Spanish counterparts in mid-March to arrest the IT
specialist.
But Folco
Galli, a spokesman for Switzerland's Federal Office of Justice, said it was
"completely wrong" to suggest that Swiss authorities have been
seeking Falciani's arrest only since March.
He said
Falciani has been listed since 2009 as a wanted person for extradition under
the Schengen zone's notification system — first on the basis of an arrest
warrant issued by a Swiss prosecutor that year, then based on the 2015 criminal
convictions.
"On
March 19, Spanish authorities told us that the search for Mr. Falciani was
valid for Spanish territory," said Galli. He declined to say whether such
a step was unusual, because cooperation on such cases between states is
confidential.
The Federal
office of Justice said that, following word of Falciani's arrest, Swiss
authorities made a fresh formal extradition request Thursday.
Henzelin,
Falciani's lawyer, noted a "hypothesis" among some, which he could
not confirm, that the arrest could be connected to a "sort of deal"
between Spain and Switzerland over a transfer of Catalan separatists who are
wanted by Spanish authorities.
"I'm
not able to verify that, but frankly if it were the case, I would consider that
rather odious," said Henzelin. "It's not in the tradition of Swiss
justice to do such a kind of bargaining. It seems to me it's more the habit of
Russia and countries like that."
X.net, a
platform of internet activists that cooperated with Falciani in some
investigations into corruption and tax evasion, criticized the arrest.
"Whistleblowers
of corruption used as exchange currency. What justice is this?" the
platform wondered in a tweet.
Spanish
defense lawyer Manuel Olle said the country's National Court had already ruled
out Falciani's extradition in 2013.
"He
can't be tried twice," Olle said, adding that he believed that the case
was politically motivated.
Herve Falciani leaked documents allegedly indicating that HSBC's Swiss private banking arm helped more than 120,000 clients to hide 180.6 billion euros ($222 billion) from tax authorities https://t.co/nnuinM56CG— AFP news agency (@AFP) April 5, 2018
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