Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has launched a ma­jor probe in­to his pre­de­ces­sors and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s han­dling of the Unit­ed States’ long-stand­ing ex­tra­di­tion re­quest for for­mer Fi­fa vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er.

The probe was re­vealed by British at­tor­ney Robert Strang, as the tri­al of Warn­er’s lat­est con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge over his pro­posed ex­tra­di­tion was set to go on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Karen Reid yes­ter­day.

Strang, who was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to re­place the State’s le­gal team for Warn­er’s case, claimed that Warn­er’s lawyers led by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, had raised valid con­cerns over a pur­port­ed agreed arrange­ment be­tween the US and this coun­try, rel­a­tive to the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest for Warn­er.

He ad­mit­ted that while the AG’s Of­fice had claimed the ex­is­tence of the arrange­ment, which specif­i­cal­ly deals with the crim­i­nal charges Warn­er would face in the US if he is even­tu­al­ly ex­tra­dit­ed, it sub­se­quent­ly ad­mit­ted that it could not be found or may not have ex­ist­ed.

Strang apol­o­gised to Warn­er, as he ad­mit­ted that his pre­vi­ous civ­il law­suit chal­leng­ing his ex­tra­di­tion was re­ject­ed by the lo­cal courts and the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil based on the agree­ment.

“It is plain that the Privy Coun­cil de­cid­ed the case based on a mis­un­der­stand­ing of facts fos­tered by the AG’s Of­fice,” Strang said.

Re­quest­ing a last-minute ad­journ­ment of the tri­al, Strang claimed that Je­re­mie was in the process of in­ves­ti­gat­ing what tran­spired so he could pro­vide the court with nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion re­quired to re­solve the case.

“The AG wish­es to as­sure the court that he takes these mat­ters very se­ri­ous­ly,” Strang said.

“He has start­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is still in­com­plete. This must be done fair­ly in the in­ter­est of nat­ur­al jus­tice,” he added.

Strang stat­ed that the probe may take sev­er­al weeks to com­plete, as staff at the AG’s Of­fice, who had al­ready sup­plied state­ments, may need to pro­vide ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion af­ter their re­ports are cross-ref­er­enced to doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence.

He said the out­come of the probe could af­fect con­fi­dence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice and may af­fect fu­ture ex­tra­di­tions to the US. He ad­mit­ted that con­ces­sions may have to be made.

In his sub­mis­sions, Ho­sein did not ob­ject to the ad­journ­ment, as he said he and his client wel­comed the move by Je­re­mie.

Ho­sein sug­gest­ed that there was “tremen­dous fab­ri­ca­tion,” since the ex­tra­di­tion process was ini­ti­at­ed in 2015 to at­tempt to “po­lit­i­cal­ly vic­timise” his client.

“They took away 10 of the best years of my client’s life,” Ho­sein said.

“If not for my team’s in­ter­ven­tion, he would have been in Al­ca­traz or Sing Sing by now,” he added, as he ref­er­enced two fa­mous US cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.

Ho­sein point­ed out that af­ter ad­mit­ting that the “be­spoke” agree­ment tai­lored to Warn­er’s pro­posed ex­tra­di­tion could not be found, the for­mer le­gal team for the AG’s Of­fice claimed the pur­port­ed agree­ment was based on the pro­vi­sions of pre­vi­ous ex­tra­di­tion re­quests that were suc­cess­ful­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed, in­clud­ing some un­der Je­re­mie’s sec­ond stint as AG from 2009-2010.

“Peo­ple who rep­re­sent the State can­not be cav­a­lier and hide or fab­ri­cate doc­u­ments. Per­sons in high of­fice must come clean,” Ho­sein said.

Stat­ing that the pend­ing case goes to the heart of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, Ho­sein said, “This is a mat­ter for the pro­tec­tion of cit­i­zens...If they could do this to a per­son like Jack Warn­er, you can imag­ine what would hap­pen to a nor­mal per­son.”

He said he and his client would ea­ger­ly await the out­come of the probe, which he sug­gest­ed may lead to a par­al­lel crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Af­ter hear­ing the sub­mis­sions, Jus­tice Reid agreed to ad­journ the tri­al to give Strang time to ad­duce ev­i­dence over the out­come of the probe.

“I am pre­pared to have the ev­i­dence so find­ings are not made on a spec­u­la­tive ba­sis,” Jus­tice Reid said.

The case is sched­uled to come up for a sta­tus hear­ing on Sep­tem­ber 12. Jus­tice Reid re­served Oc­to­ber 3 for a new tri­al if such is re­quired.

Warn­er, 81, is ac­cused by US au­thor­i­ties of 29 charges re­lat­ed to fraud, rack­e­teer­ing and en­gag­ing in il­le­gal wire trans­fers while he was in the Fi­fa hi­er­ar­chy.

The of­fences are al­leged to have tak­en place in the Unit­ed States, T&T and oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions be­tween 1990 and June 2011, the year Warn­er quit Fi­fa af­ter be­ing sus­pend­ed.

Af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed on a pro­vi­sion­al war­rant pur­suant to the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest, Warn­er was re­leased on $2.5 mil­lion bail.

He is one of sev­er­al se­nior ex­ec­u­tives of world foot­ball’s gov­ern­ing body who were in­dict­ed on a se­ries of charges af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to cor­rup­tion in foot­ball, con­duct­ed by the US Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) and De­part­ment of Jus­tice in 2015.

Sev­er­al of his for­mer col­leagues have plead­ed guilty to the charges and have been sen­tenced. Warn­er’s sons, Daryan and Daryll, were al­so in­dict­ed and plead­ed guilty to their charges.

The ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings against Warn­er were put on hold while he pur­sued a civ­il law­suit claim­ing in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween this coun­try’s ex­tra­di­tion treaty with the US and the Ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and For­eign Ter­ri­to­ries) Act, which was passed by Par­lia­ment in 1985 be­fore be­ing amend­ed in 2004.

In up­hold­ing the de­ci­sion of the lo­cal courts to re­ject Warn­er’s law­suit, the Privy Coun­cil ruled that there was suf­fi­cient con­for­mi­ty be­tween the treaty and the leg­is­la­tion de­spite mi­nor dif­fer­ences.

“For the rea­sons set out, the board is sat­is­fied that a broad and gen­er­ous con­struc­tion should be ap­plied to the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of con­for­mi­ty in Sec­tion 4 (2) of the act and that the mat­ters raised by the ap­pel­lant do not lead to any breach of the con­for­mi­ty test,” the board said.

As sec­ondary is­sues in the ap­peal, the Privy Coun­cil had to con­sid­er the ef­fect of a spe­cial arrange­ment agreed to by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, as he is­sued the au­thor­i­ty to pro­ceed (ATP) for the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings.

Un­der the arrange­ment, Al-Rawi was al­leged to have agreed to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest if the US agreed to on­ly pros­e­cute Warn­er based on the charges it dis­closed and on less­er charges that arose from the ev­i­dence it pro­vid­ed.

The Privy Coun­cil ruled that the pur­port­ed arrange­ment, which is now sub­ject to the probe ini­ti­at­ed by Je­re­mie, was per­mis­si­ble un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

“The cer­tifi­cate pro­vid­ed by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dis­closed a spe­cial­i­ty arrange­ment which com­plied with the Act and which the USA could be ex­pect­ed to ho­n­our,” they said.

The is­sue with the ex­is­tence of the arrange­ment arose when the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings re­sumed be­fore for­mer chief mag­is­trate and cur­rent High Court Judge Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle.

She stayed the case and per­mit­ted Warn­er to raise the is­sue in a fresh case be­fore the High Court, which was as­signed to Jus­tice Reid.

Warn­er is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Rishi Dass, SC, Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh, Anil Maraj and Aadam Ho­sein.

Warn­er feels vin­di­cat­ed

For­mer Fi­fa vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er says he is pleased that a probe in­to his ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings has been ini­ti­at­ed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, af­ter the probe was re­vealed dur­ing a hear­ing of his most re­cent law­suit over the pro­ceed­ings, Warn­er said, “I am hap­py that the present At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was able to be hon­est and to ex­pose what hap­pened to me. In the full­ness of time, all these mat­ters would be ex­posed,” he said.

“For ten long years, I have been pil­lo­ried in this coun­try, I have been per­se­cut­ed, and I have been op­pressed, and in the worst pos­si­ble way. I am say­ing to­day’s mat­ter in the court, in my hum­ble view, is a mat­ter of some kind of vin­di­ca­tion for the strug­gle I’ve gone through.” Warn­er sug­gest­ed that those re­spon­si­ble for the al­leged mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion should face crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

“I hope that those who have, in some way, rep­re­sent­ed this mat­ter by the Gov­ern­ment, and who I be­lieve have done so il­le­gal­ly, I hope that they bear the full brunt of the law,” he said.

Warn­er ex­pressed hope that the le­gal is­sues raised in his pro­tract­ed ex­tra­di­tion chal­lenges would al­so help to pro­tect cit­i­zens, who may face such in the fu­ture.

“It is not about Jack Warn­er at all. It’s about the poor man in the street, who may not have the means or abil­i­ty to fight for jus­tice,” Warn­er said.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, who took over the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings af­ter they were first ini­ti­at­ed un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2015.

How­ev­er, he did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone.