DEREK ACHONG

Five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil have dis­missed for­mer FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive and T&T gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jack Warn­er's fi­nal ap­peal over the dis­missal of his law­suit chal­leng­ing the Unit­ed States (US) ex­tra­di­tion re­quest for him.

Lords Hodge, Brig­gs, Ham­blen, Bur­rows, and Sir De­clan Mor­gan de­liv­ered their de­ci­sion in the ap­peal ear­li­er to­day, af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions from lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Warn­er and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at the UK's Supreme Court in Lon­don, Eng­land, ear­li­er this year.

In its de­ci­sion, the Board dis­missed all four grounds raised by Warn­er in the ap­peal as it up­held con­sis­tent de­ci­sions from the lo­cal High Court and Court of Ap­peal.

It ruled that this coun­try’s ex­tra­di­tion treaty with the US did not con­tra­dict the Ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and For­eign Ter­ri­to­ries) Act. It al­so ruled that for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi did not act un­fair­ly in his han­dling of the US ex­tra­di­tion re­quest for Warn­er.

The de­ci­sion in the ap­peal clears the way for ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle, which were put on hold as Warn­er was pur­su­ing his civ­il lit­i­ga­tion, to re­sume.

In a state­ment is­sued a short while ago, Warn­er said he would con­tin­ue to chal­lenge the le­gal­i­ty of the pro­posed ex­tra­di­tion.

"I con­tin­ue to have con­fi­dence in my team led by Fyard Ho­sein Se­nior Coun­sel, and I have ad­vised them to con­tin­ue to press my case on the three re­main­ing stages of these pro­ceed­ings. I have lived in this coun­try for near­ly eighty years, and I am con­fi­dent that I will con­tin­ue to re­ceive the love, af­fec­tion, and re­spect that peo­ple from all walks of life have al­ways ex­tend­ed to me. I am cer­tain I will pre­vail in the end," Warn­er said.

Warn­er, a for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent, is ac­cused of 12 charges re­lat­ed to fraud, rack­e­teer­ing and en­gag­ing in il­le­gal wire trans­fers.

The of­fences are al­leged to have tak­en place in the Unit­ed States, T&T and oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions be­tween 1990 and June 2011 when Warn­er quit FI­FA.

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 (DOJ).

Sev­er­al of his for­mer col­leagues have plead­ed guilty to the charges and have been sen­tenced.