Wikileaks claims ‘abuse of process’ in court case that resulted in wikileaks.org being taken offline

February 29, 2008 Wikileaks has claimed in a press release that the Swiss bank, Bank Julius Baer & Trust, has abused the system by involving an administrator of the Wikileaks group on Facebook in the court case which has recently lead to a court injunction causing wikileaks.org DNS entry to be removed. As of this writing, Wikileaks could still be accessed via its IP address at http://88.80.13.160/wiki/wikileaks.

The Facebook user who became involved in the court case has responded to this by saying that "I am an officer of a Facebook group, which is essentially a message board for discussion of issues relating to Wikileaks. I am not, and never have been, an officer of Wikileaks, and I request you [Bank Julius Baer & Trust] not to represent that I am."

Bank Julius Baer & Trust’s law firm said that “as an officer of a defendant in this action, my client [Bank Julius Baer & Trust] is entitled to serve you [the Facebook User] a copy of the summons and complaint pursuant.”

In a different press release, Wikileaks stated that they were not sure of the authenticity of the documents from Bank Julius Baer & Trust until the court case started. They say that the bank "in attempting to shoot the messenger has only succeeded, spectacularly, in shooting itself."

The injunction, which a Wikileaks user describes as 'blind' and 'unlawful' was granted in the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, California. The case was regarding several documents allegedly obtained from a whistleblower of the Bank Julius Baer & Trust.