Swiss bank boots Assange, Wikileaks

If you can't trust your Swiss bank account, what can you trust? That's surely the question being asked by Wikileaks chief Julian Assange today, as the Swiss bank account used by WikiLeaks as a “defense fund” was closed on Monday.

At issue was the place of residence of Assange. He had told PostFinance, the finance arm of the Swiss Postal service SwissPost, that his place of residence was Geneva. However, the bank said that “upon inspection, this information was found to be incorrect. Assange cannot provide proof of residence in Switzerland and thus does not meet the criteria for a customer relationship with PostFinance.”

It's the latest financial hit against Wikileaks, which earlier saw its PayPal account suspended. Wikileaks own statement in the matter said that the account, with some $41,000, was seized after the bank found that Assange, “as a homeless refugee attempting to gain residency in Switzerland, had used his lawyer’s address in Geneva for the bank’s correspondence.”

However, WikiLeaks said it continues to maintain bank accounts in Iceland and Germany.

Update: MasterCard has also given Wikileaks the boot, meaning that WikiLeaks can no longer accept donations via MasterCard.