August 7 – Football’s most wanted, former Concacaf president and FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, looks to have once again evaded the possibility of extradition to the USA on 29 charges of wire fraud, racketeering, money laundering, and bribery.
Warner was indicted in the 2015 US Department of Justice case against FIFA that brought the global governing body to a standstill and a moral and ethical crossroads. One that few believe it has crossed.
In the latest twist in the Warner extradition proceedings, the Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General’s office says it has launched an investigation into the previous management of the extradition request from the US and in particular the management of the case by the previous PNM ruling political party.
At the heart of the investigation is an agreement allegedly made by made by former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi with the US Justice Department in 2015 that was made before he signed off on the authority for the chief magistrate to proceed with extradition proceedings.
That agreement supposedly outlined the criminal charges Warner would face in the US if extradited. No copy of that agreement can be found, and hence the newly announced investigation by the Attorney General’s office into the management of the extradition request.
Robert Strang, who recently took over as lead counsel for the State in this case, agreed that Warner’s legal team had raised legitimate questions regarding the alleged agreement.
He also acknowledged that although the Attorney General’s Office had previously said there was an agreement document, it had later been unable to locate the agreement, suggesting its possible non-existence.
The importance of the agreement is that it relates to ‘the speciality principle’ which means that the person extradited can be prosecuted or sentenced in the requesting state (in Warner’s case the US) only in relation to the offences for which extradition was granted, and not for any other crime allegedly committed before the extradition took place.
On 24 July 2015, the US asked for Warner to be extradited. The request triggered a series of challenges to the extradition process by Warner who has not left Trinidad and Tobago .
On 17 November 2022, the UK Privy Council (the appeal body under Trinidad and Tobago law) eventually ruled that the US’s request for Warner’s extradition was not unfair, which cleared the path for the continuation of proceedings to extradite Warner.
Warner then asked the magistrate in charge of the extradition process to refer his questions to the High Court.
His questions remain unanswered and the agreement paperwork un-found.
Warner has already been sentenced, in absence, in the US. Brooklyn U.S. District Judge William Kuntz ordered him to pay $79 million in damages to Concacaf following a 2017 civil action accusing him of embezzling tens of millions of dollars.
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