GENEVA (AFP) - A Swiss court on Wednesday found banking whistleblower Rudolf Elmer guilty of breaching bank secrecy laws and handed down a suspended fine, a judge said.

The 55-year-old former chief operating officer at private bank Julius Baer's subsidiary in the Cayman Islands was found guilty of seeking to blackmail the bank, making threats and violating banking secrecy laws.

He was acquitted by the district court in Zurich of accusations of making a bomb hoax that were levelled by the public prosecutor.

Judge Sebastian Aeppli sentenced the former banker to a suspended fine of 7,200 Swiss francs (5,500 euros), noting that Elmer had "for years been a part of the banking world" and had "benefited" from this.

His motives in handing over a set of bank client data to website WikiLeaks in 2007 were therefore not to fight tax evasion, but stemmed from his dismissal from Julius Baer five years earlier, said the judge.