Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is con­fi­dent that he will be cleared of the bribery al­le­ga­tions that led to his sus­pen­sion from FI­FA once he re­veals de­tails of an e-mail ex­change with Blat­ter. Warn­er, who re­turned home late Thurs­day, says he will make the rev­e­la­tions to­mor­row when he ad­dress­es sup­port­ers in his Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy, af­ter a mo­tor­cade. He is pledg­ing to con­tin­ue hit­ting FI­FA with the "foot­ball tsuna­mi" he promised last week. At a me­dia brief­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port short­ly af­ter his ar­rival, Warn­er told re­porters: "The con­tents of the e-mail are crys­tal clear as to what tran­spired."

To­mor­row, Warn­er will stage a mo­tor­cade in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day, start­ing at the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary from 8 am and end­ing at the Ju­bilee Recre­ation Ground, Fe­lic­i­ty, at 1 pm. He will de­liv­er a speech at the end of the mo­tor­cade which will be car­ried live on six ra­dio sta­tions. Warn­er's lat­est state­ments on the bribery scan­dal came just hours ahead of re­ports in the British me­dia that new wit­ness­es have come for­ward with ev­i­dence against him and an­oth­er sus­pend­ed FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber, Mo­hammed bin Ham­mam. The British me­dia are al­so re­port­ing that two oth­er Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers trav­elled to the meet­ing in T&T at which bin Ham­mam ad­dressed mem­bers of the CFU. Worawi Maku­di, of Thai­land, and V Mani­lal Fer­nan­do, of Sri Lan­ka, who was ap­point­ed to the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee this week, are re­port­ed to have ac­com­pa­nied bin Ham­mam to the spe­cial con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain. It is un­clear in what ca­pac­i­ty they at­tend­ed.

FI­FA has hired for­mer FBI di­rec­tor Louis Freeh's in­ves­ti­ga­tions agency to gath­er ev­i­dence, af­ter al­le­ga­tions that bin Ham­mam and Warn­er of­fered US$40,000 bribes to vot­ers dur­ing the foot­ball body's pres­i­den­tial cam­paign last month. FI­FA an­nounced yes­ter­day that Freeh Group In­ter­na­tion­al (FGI) Eu­rope was "man­dat­ed" to help its Ethics Com­mit­tee, which would sum­mon the two sus­pend­ed se­nior of­fi­cials to a full in­quiry due to be held next month. "This com­pa­ny will work un­der the di­rect su­per­vi­sion and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Judge Robert T Tor­res, mem­ber of the Ethics Com­mit­tee, who has been en­trust­ed by the com­mit­tee with su­per­vis­ing and di­rect­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion," FI­FA said in a state­ment. Freeh found­ed FGI af­ter lead­ing the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion from 1993-2001. His in­ves­ti­ga­tors' work will in­clude in­ter­view­ing Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) of­fi­cials who al­leged­ly were of­fered cash bribes at a meet­ing held here in Trinidad and To­ba­go to back bin Ham­mam's FI­FA pres­i­den­tial bid.

Bin Ham­mam with­drew his can­di­da­cy last Sun­day, hours be­fore FI­FA's ethics pan­el pro­vi­sion­al­ly sus­pend­ed him and Warn­er, pend­ing a full hear­ing. Both men de­nied ar­rang­ing bribes, and Bin Ham­man al­leged that sup­port­ers of FI­FA pres­i­dent Sepp Blat­ter con­spired to re­move him from the elec­tion con­test. Blat­ter, who was cleared by the ethics pan­el of turn­ing a blind eye to in­tend­ed cor­rup­tion, was re-elect­ed un­op­posed on Wednes­day. One of Warn­er's long-time Caribbean al­lies, Ho­race Bur­rell, of Ja­maica, de­nied that his is­land's gov­ern­ing body was in­volved. "Let me state cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly that the (Ja­maica fed­er­a­tion) was not of­fered, nei­ther re­ceived any funds pri­or to, dur­ing nor af­ter the CFU meet­ing held May 10-11 in Trinidad," Bur­rell said in a state­ment.

The scan­dal broke when Chuck Blaz­er, the Unit­ed States' rep­re­sen­ta­tive on FI­FA's rul­ing pan­el, de­liv­ered a file of ev­i­dence, in­clud­ing wit­ness state­ments from four CFU mem­ber coun­tries. Blaz­er said "much more ev­i­dence" would emerge from Caribbean of­fi­cials, who were ad­vised in Zurich to hand over the mon­ey to FI­FA and as­sist the in­quiry, or face be­ing placed un­der sus­pi­cion. Since Freeh opened the in­ves­ti­ga­tion last week, sev­er­al na­tion­al as­so­ci­a­tions present at a meet­ing in Trinidad, at which $1 mil­lion in bribes are al­leged to have been of­fered, have made con­tact. Freeh has be­gun in­ter­view­ing wit­ness­es who at­tend­ed the CFU meet­ing, in­clud­ing those who pro­vid­ed state­ments and sworn af­fi­davits to the orig­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion or­dered by Blaz­er.

For­mer US fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor John Collins com­piled a re­port based on wit­ness state­ments from sev­en Caribbean foot­ball of­fi­cials from four coun­tries, as well as tes­ti­mo­ny from Blaz­er. Blaz­er is ex­pect­ed to be in­ter­viewed by Freeh, as well as An­ton Sealey, pres­i­dent of the Ba­hamas Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, who was first to raise the al­leged bribes with Blaz­er. New wit­ness­es have come for­ward since Blaz­er warned mem­bers of the CFU ear­li­er this week to re­turn any mon­ey they may have been of­fered, or face in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Of­fi­cials are said to have been of­fered $40,000 in brown en­velopes in ex­change for their vote in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Warn­er has sub­mit­ted a lengthy de­fence of his con­duct, dis­miss­ing the al­le­ga­tions as a fab­ri­ca­tion. His state­ment is ac­com­pa­nied by sup­port­ing state­ments from 13 Caribbean na­tions who say that the al­le­ga­tions are false. Those state­ments will be close­ly scru­ti­nised by Freeh.