For the conspiracy-minded here, I ask: Why would any organization bother to murder a whistleblower who delivered documents over a year ago? He's no longer relevant.
Any unethical organization wants to make one thing clear to potential whislteblowers: actually going through with it will mean you will be hounded for your entire life in various ways, legal or illegal.
If it were enough to lay low for one year after leaking sensitive documents, and then all would be forgiven, many more people would leak things. Powerful organizations of any kind (corporations, unions, state agencies) don't want to allow that.
Note: I am not claiming this MUST have been foul play. I'm just claiming it can't be dismissed a priori with such arguments.
They are trying to make an example out of Snowden to deter someone doing something similar in the future.
I don't know anything about this case and it doesn't seem plausible that anyone had him killed. But the release of panama papers did also lead to the sudden death of a few people.
As a Swiss I have never heard about this but it does sound very interesting. Do you have any sources for this?
https://taxjustice.net/2017/06/02/whistleblower-ruedi-elmer-...
There was also the case of Eckart Seith. He was very recently acquitted probably because the issue gained too much attention to cover it up. He was accused of economic espionage and other crimes. The prosecutor very clearly was partial and only after 5 attempts he was dismissed.
This isn't restricted to Switzerland at all of course, similar problems are as prevalent in other countries if you look closer.
As glad as I am to be born and living in Switzerland, it makes me sad to see how much BS my country does in the background, be it banking, resource industry like Glencore, food industry like Nestle etc. And due to our small size it seems like not many scandals leak or come to light, not even internally.
Of course Credit Suisse and UBS get slapped with fines almost every year it seems, but that feels more like a show than anything more.
"We'll get you when you think you've gotten away. You'll never be safe."
There is a reason why the witness protection program allows people to change identity for life and not just for the time they're relevant.
Because the goal is not to per se bury the story, but to intimidate others whom might want to leak
You don't murder these whom are on the spotlight, you murder them after they have left the spotlight and their deaths would be less covered by mainstream media outlets
We all know what happened. Its sad hes dead obviously. But the feds should've protected their assets better.
Worth a watch [0], it's not his first (or his father's) run-in with these matters.
Any entity having something that could actually be exchanged for 3 trillion dollars is obviously impossible, so I see no reason to put any stock in the tweet.