Asha Javeed

For­mer FI­FA vice pres­i­dent and Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er's sur­pris­ing ex­it from in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball last week came af­ter bribery al­le­ga­tions sur­faced in Asian Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion head Mo­hammed Bin Ham­mam's failed FI­FA pres­i­den­tial bid. But had he not quit his FI­FA post, Warn­er would have been found guilty of cor­rup­tion said a mem­ber of FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee, Son­dre Kaafjord. There has been grow­ing calls for Warn­er to step down from his min­is­te­r­i­al post as it re­mains un­clear what his in­volve­ment, if any, in the bribery al­le­ga­tions. Fol­low­ing is a look at the laws to con­sid­er as T&T's law en­force­ment of­fi­cers have not ex­er­cised their full rights in pur­suit of the case, says a se­nior lawyer who has been fol­low­ing the mat­ter and has asked not to be iden­ti­fied.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs is stalling jus­tice if he's sim­ply wait­ing for a let­ter from Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (FI­FA) to as­cer­tain whether there was crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in T&T's shores by for­mer FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive and Works Min­is­ter, Jack Warn­er. The T&T Guardian was told that Gibbs took an "over­ly sim­plis­tic" ap­proach in writ­ing FI­FA to as­sist T&T's Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) when the laws of T&T gave him pow­er to pur­sue the case be­yond T&T's shores. Gibbs, un­der pres­sure from Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, wrote to FI­FA two weeks ago but the T&T Guardian was in­formed that he was yet to re­ceive an of­fi­cial re­sponse. But the laws of T&T make pro­vi­sions for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er or the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to re­quest and ob­tain in­for­ma­tion on Warn­er's host­ing of a meet­ing with Asian foot­ball head Mo­hammned bin Ham­mam, in his quest for FI­FA pres­i­den­cy, and the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) meet­ing which took place on May 10-11 at the Hy­att, Trinidad.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that AG Anand Ram­lo­gan, could have re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from oth­er Com­mon­wealth and non-Com­mon­wealth coun­tries through the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, a unit with­in his min­istry that deals with mu­tu­al le­gal as­sis­tance re­quests and ex­tra­di­tion mat­ters. This pow­er, the T&T Guardian learned, is to be found in the Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act, 1997 (as amend­ed) Chap­ter 11:24 of the Laws of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Sec­tion 3 (1) states: "Sub­ject to sub-sec­tion (2), the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al shall be Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty." A let­ter of re­quest from T&T's Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty can be trans­mit­ted to a Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty in an­oth­er ju­ris­dic­tion which has the same leg­is­la­tion. the Guardian was in­formed. Sec­tion 7 of the same Act, ti­tled Re­quests by Trinidad and To­ba­go to Com­mon­wealth Coun­tries for As­sis­tance. gives ei­ther the AG or Gibbs pow­er to pur­sue in­ves­ti­ga­tions of Warn­er be­yond T&T shores to in­ter­na­tion­al coun­tries, if need be.

Sec­tion 7 reads: "Where there are rea­son­able grounds to be­lieve that ev­i­dence or in­for­ma­tion rel­e­vant to any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings may be ob­tained, if, in a Com­mon­wealth coun­try: (a) Ev­i­dence is tak­en from any per­son; (b) in­for­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed; (c) ju­di­cial records, of­fi­cial records or oth­er records, or doc­u­ments or oth­er ar­ti­cles are pro­duced or ex­am­ined; (d) sam­ples of any mat­ter or thing are tak­en, ex­am­ined or test­ed; and, (e) any build­ing, place or thing is viewed of pho­tographed, re­quest may be trans­mit­ted re­quest­ing that as­sis­tance be giv­en by that coun­try in so ob­tain­ing the ev­i­dence or in­for­ma­tion." "This Act gives Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs the au­thor­i­ty to in­ter­view any mem­bers of the CFU if he wants. He doesn't have to wait on FI­FA cor­re­spon­dence or a FI­FA re­port, he can be proac­tive," a le­gal source ex­plained to the T&T Guardian.

Fur­ther, Sec­tions 33E (8) and 33 (F) of the Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act, gives way for ev­i­dence ob­tained legal­ly abroad to be ad­mis­si­ble in T&T's courts. This, the T&T Guardian was told, is sup­ple­ment­ed by Sec­tion 15B of the Ev­i­dence (Amend­ment) Act 2007. It states: "In any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings, ev­i­dence of crim­i­nal con­duct which may be con­tained in a doc­u­ment may be ad­mis­si­ble in ev­i­dence if the doc­u­ment, (a) is the best or on­ly ev­i­dence of that con­duct which is al­leged by the pros­e­cu­tion; and, (b) is ob­tained by or un­der the hand of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in any mat­ter re­lat­ed to mu­tu­al le­gal co-op­er­a­tion pur­suant to the Mu­tu­al As­sis­tance in Crim­i­nal Mat­ters Act, 1997. The T&T Guardian un­der­stands this method of gath­er­ing ev­i­dence was used in the Bas­deo Pan­day mat­ter, in Pi­ar­co (No. 2) pre­lim­i­nary en­quiry of busi­ness­men Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gur­son and for­mer Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Fin­bar Gan­ga. When it comes to ex­plor­ing where the US cur­ren­cy was ob­tained for bin Ham­mam's $40,000 cash pay­out to CFU mem­bers from lo­cal banks, pro­vi­sions are made un­der Sec­tion 3 (1) of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­u­la­tions, 2011.

It al­lows the Di­rec­tor of the FIU to re­quest fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion from a fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion or list­ed busi­ness by writ­ten re­quest. "Where the di­rec­tor makes a re­quest un­der sub-reg­u­la­tion (1), the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion or list­ed busi­ness shall re­spond to the re­quest with­in sev­en work­ing days of the re­ceipt of the re­quest for in­for­ma­tion," states Sec­tion 3(2). The T&T Guardian un­der­stands the FIU could have sought as­sis­tance of the lo­cal banks in ob­tain­ing the bank records of Warn­er be­fore May 10. In ad­di­tion, un­der the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, Warn­er was ex­pect­ed to list all his ac­counts to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, which should make ac­cess eas­i­er, the T&T Guardian was in­formed. If the mon­ey didn't come from T&T, then it can be as­sumed that it came in­to T&T," a source ex­plained. Warn­er re­signed from FI­FA and as pres­i­dent of CON­CA­CAF and the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) on June 20 and was of­fi­cial­ly stripped of the tran­port part of his min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio last Sun­day. Dr Row­ley has called for Gibbs to press on with in­ves­ti­gat­ing whether the laws of T&T were bro­ken de­spite Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion and his leav­ing FI­FA "pre­sumed in­no­cent."