Richard Lord

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard says Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has not been cleared of bribery al­le­ga­tions aris­ing out of a Caribbean Foot­ball Union meet­ing in Port-of-Spain last year. He made the dis­clo­sure in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

"I have not cleared Jack Warn­er of any­thing. I have not closed any in­ves­ti­ga­tions. I nev­er gave any di­rec­tive to close in­ves­ti­ga­tions against Warn­er. I have not brought this in­ves­ti­ga­tion to a close," said Gas­pard. He said he re­ceived a memo, dat­ed March 20, 2012, from in­ves­ti­ga­tor, ASP To­taram Dook­ie, which stat­ed he was un­able to dis­cern any con­tra­ven­tion of T&T laws by any per­son.

How­ev­er, Dook­ie in his let­ter to the DPP said fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions may be war­rant­ed, pur­suant to the Cus­toms Act 78:01. A source close to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion said a video and doc­u­ments seized dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were in­suf­fi­cient to ad­vance pros­e­cu­tion against Warn­er. The source said there might be a crim­i­nal case to be pur­sued un­der the Cus­toms Act.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­quest­ed a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged bribery scan­dal in­volv­ing Warn­er in May last year. It was al­leged Warn­er, in his ca­pac­i­ty as pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU), at a meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel on May 10 and 11, 2011 of­fered US$40,000 to 25 coun­tries rep­re­sent­ed at the meet­ing for their sup­port of FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive Mo­hamed Bin Ham­mam.

He was chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent Sepp Blat­ter for the post of FI­FA pres­i­dent. Warn­er and Bin Ham­mam were to ap­pear be­fore FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee to an­swer bribery charges. But Warn­er sub­se­quent­ly re­signed his FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion and avoid­ed ap­pear­ing be­fore FI­FA's Ethics Com­mit­tee to an­swer the charges. Bin Ham­mam was banned from FI­FA for life af­ter he was found guilty by the com­mit­tee.

Mean­while, Warn­er, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, said the find­ings of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter were "con­sis­tent with my po­si­tion all along that I have been in­no­cent of the al­le­ga­tions against me." Warn­er said he had been vin­di­cat­ed. He said he did not wish to say any­thing about the thor­ough­ness of the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing those were mat­ters for the rel­e­vant agen­cies to treat with in what­ev­er man­ner they deemed ap­pro­pri­ate.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley had re­quest­ed a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er.