Swiss bank forces U.S. arm of whistleblower website to close

A Swiss bank has convinced a Californiajudge to close down an online site where leakers could post documents anonymously.

Wikileaks, which began in 2007, said Monday that the giant Swiss wealth management company Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. and Bank Julius Baer & Trust Co. Ltd. of the Cayman Islands had won an injunction orderingits California host to take down the site.

Wikileaks said it was not presentat the hearing, and the ruling is preliminary.

Itsaid that it had published documents allegedly relating to bank business in the Cayman Islands.

The groupsaid it has alternative sites in Australia and Belgium and has vowed tocontinue to publish banking documents, sayingthe bank injunction is not constitutional under U.S. law.

"Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their own governments and corporations," the group has said.

The Julius Baer website said it is awealth management organization with more than 4,000 employees and $365 billion assets under administration at the end of 2007.

Wikileaks uses the wiki designation, which means users can post and edit content, but is not related to Wikipedia.