Trinidadian High Court stays extradition of former senior FIFA official

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – High Court judge, Justice Karen Reid, Tuesday said that the former vice president of the International Football Federation (FIFA), Austin Jack Warner was subjected to a “flawed” process when the United States sought his extradition to face several fraud-related charges in the North American country.

“Ordinarily, civil courts are slow to make any decision, the effect of which is to thwart the conduct of criminal prosecutions, as the public interest is usually best served by having those prosecutions determined on their merits.

“When it comes to the handing over of citizens for extraterritorial prosecution, the Extradition Act provides a manner in which this is to be done, and the protections that are required to be put in place for the protection of our citizens,” Justice Reid said.

Warner, 81, faces 29 charges from US authorities for fraud, racketeering, and illegal wire transfers that allegedly took place in the United States, Trinidad and Tobago, and other countries between 1990 and June 2011.

He was arrested on a provisional warrant under the extradition request and later released on TT$2.5 million bail. Warner is one of several senior FIFA officials indicted following a 2015 US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice probe into corruption in international football.

In August this year, Attorney General John Jeremie launched an internal investigation into how the State handled Warner’s extradition case, after serious allegations emerged regarding misrepresentation and misconduct tied to a 2015 agreement with the United States.

Former chief magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle had in June 2023 said that there was no formal written agreement between Trinidad and Tobago and the US authorising Warner’s extradition.

When the matter came up for hearing last Friday, Justice Reid, was told that the Office of the Attorney General has since conceded that a key document supporting the extradition request is non-existent, and as a result, the legal proceedings against him should be stopped.

But the judge said that she was not immediately prepared to quash the proceedings and directed that further written submissions be filed for her consideration.

British King’s Counsel, Robert Strang, representing the Attorney General’s Office, told the court that there was no existing “specialty” arrangement between the two countries that supported the certificate used to proceed with Warner’s extradition.

The extradition proceedings had been mired in legal challenges — notably over what’s called the “specialty principle,” which requires that a person extradited can be prosecuted only for the offences listed in the extradition request.

In her ruling, the judge said that one of the protections afforded to citizens is that the rule of specialty, protects them from being prosecuted for offences other than those for which they are being extradited.

“A few things have become obvious. It is not in dispute that the only arrangement existing between the requesting state and Trinidad and Tobago is the treaty.”

The judge made reference to the London-based Privy Council, the country’s highest and final court in its rulings on the treaty provisions in relation to the specialty rule, noting that the alternative of relying on the requesting state’s laws to afford such protection would lead to uncertain results owing to differences in statutory interpretation or changes in the law.

Justice Reid said that the Privy Council had noted that because of the differences, Trinidad and Tobago’s Extradition (Commonwealth and Foreign Territories) Act “provided for specialty arrangements to be made to secure the protection of the rights of our citizens who are being extradited”

She said the Privy Council “accepted the assumption that the requesting state was acting in good faith and that even absent an agreement, the United States usually applied the specialty rule.

“And finally, the board found that the certificate of the attorney general disclosed a specialty arrangement which complied with the law.”

But she noted that in Warner’s case, the arrangement the local and apex courts were led to believe existed was a fiction.

In an immediate reaction to the High Court ruling, Warner, who also served as a senior government minister in Trinidad, expressed his relief at the decision.

“I feel relived, but I want you to understand that this took 10 years of my life and I want to especially thank my legal team,” Warner said, after High Court Judge, Justice Karen Reid ruled against extraditing the former FIFA senior official.

“They had to face 15 lawyers from the state…and after 10 years, I am thrilled, I cannot find the words, relieved by the fact we were able to win this matter and that the extradition has been permanently stayed.

“For me, it is a big event, a red letter day and all I could say I thank God and I also thank my family for standing with me through these difficult times,” he said, adding that he believes that the extradition matter against him “was a political witch hunt.

“It has to be ….this happen to me at a time when I was serving this country at one of the highest levels in Parliament…so I consider it to be a witch-hunt, a political witch hunt.

“But most importantly what happens after this. I want to say I want to serve the country once again,” Warner said, hinting at a return to football.

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