PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Former international soccer strongman and Trinidad and Tobago government minister Austin “Jack” Warner last month received conditional leave to take before the London-based Privy Council his challenge against being extradited to the United States to face corruption charges.
“Warner” A three-member Court of Appeal here also set out reduced timeframes for the procedural steps to be taken by the Trinidad and Tobago national Warner, who had his initial claim for judicial review dismissed by High Court judge James Aboud in 2017.
The new timeframes include paying a fee and settling the record before final leave can be granted for Warner to take his case to the court in London, T&T’s final and highest court.
Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein told the Appeal Court the state has indicated his client had a valid appeal. He also submitted that the country’s extradition treaty with the U.S. was inconsistent with the Extradition (Commonwealth and Foreign Territories) Act. Senior Counsel Douglas Mendes, who is representing the state, agreed to the stay, but urged Warner’s legal team to seek an expedited hearing of the appeal at the Privy Council since, according to him, the case could impact all extraditions to the U.S.
CHALLENGE
The 76-year-old Warner is contesting the process by which the extradition proceedings against him were being carried out and seeking to quash the authority to proceed, which was signed in 2016 by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi.
Warner, a former senior T&T government minister and a former vice-president of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, is also challenging the legality of the Extradition (Commonwealth and Foreign Territories) Act and the treaty signed between this country and the U.S.
In a 40-page written decision dismissing his latest claim in June, the Court of Appeal said the extradition treaty had not been shown to lack conformity with the Act and there was no merit in Warner’s case that the U.S. order, which declared that country as a declared foreign territory was not valid.
“Therefore, the pending extradition proceedings in respect of the appellant before the magistrate are valid,” the Court of Appeal ruled, adding that “there was no denial of justice in the issuance of the ATP by the Attorney General.”
INDICTMENTS
Warner, who is on TT$2.5 million (one TT dollar=US$0.16 cents)bail, was one of nine former and current FIFA executives to be named in a 47-count indictment by then U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, back in 2015.
The indictment alleged racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies among other offenses - spanning 24 years - in a scheme “to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer.”
Cayman Islands’ Jeffrey Webb, who replaced Warner as president of CONCACAF, which governs soccer in the Caribbean, North and Central America, and FIFA vice-president following the cash-for-votes scandal of 2011, was also indicted. He subsequently pleaded guilty.
Warner is charged with 12 offenses related to racketeering, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed in the jurisdiction of the U.S. and T&T dating as far back as 1990.
However, Warner has claimed the case against him is politically motivated, accusing the U.S. of seeking revenge because it lost to Qatar in its bid to host the 2022 World Cup. He surrendered himself to police here in 2015, after learning of the provisional warrant for his arrest.
