JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

For­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and works and trans­port Jack Warn­er says now that the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest against him by the Unit­ed States (US) has been per­ma­nent­ly blocked, he wants to re­turn to serv­ing the pub­lic.

Warn­er, 81, is want­ed by the US on 29 charges re­lat­ed to fraud, rack­e­teer­ing, and en­gag­ing in il­le­gal wire trans­fers. The of­fences are al­leged to have tak­en place in the US, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions be­tween 1990 and June 2011. Warn­er re­signed from his role as FI­FA Vice Pres­i­dent af­ter be­ing sus­pend­ed by the in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball body over cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter High Court Judge Karen Reid per­ma­nent­ly stayed his ex­tra­di­tion to the US to face cor­rup­tion charges, he said the next step was a re­turn to foot­ball.

“I am pre­pared to serve the coun­try once again. I want to be able to re­vive foot­ball in the coun­try. I want to be able to lend to the sport that made me who I am, with some help, be­cause I think that foot­ball can do won­ders, es­pe­cial­ly at this point in time, qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup,” he added.

In 2022, the Privy Coun­cil found that Warn­er’s ex­tra­di­tion case should con­tin­ue. The de­ci­sion was based on the un­der­stand­ing that there was a spe­cial­ty arrange­ment be­tween the US and Trinidad and To­ba­go that would pro­hib­it the US from pros­e­cut­ing Warn­er on any charges out­side of what was list­ed on the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest.

Last month, the lead at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, King’s Coun­sel Robert Strang, con­ced­ed that while the AG’s Of­fice pre­vi­ous­ly claimed it had a case-spe­cif­ic cer­tifi­cate of spe­cial­ty, which means that the US could on­ly pros­e­cute Warn­er for the spe­cif­ic charges list­ed in the ex­tra­di­tion re­quest and not for any oth­er crimes, no such doc­u­ment was found by Je­re­mie through an in­ter­nal probe.

Strang ad­mit­ted that the pre­vi­ous le­gal team had re­lied on a gen­er­alised cer­tifi­cate, one that had been used in dozens of ex­tra­di­tions over the past two decades, in­clud­ing dur­ing Je­re­mie’s first term as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

In de­liv­er­ing her judg­ment, Reid found that the Privy Coun­cil had been mis­led, which paved the way for it to de­clare that Warn­er’s ex­tra­di­tion tri­al should con­tin­ue.

She said the spe­cial­ty arrange­ment was cen­tral to the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing, and, giv­en the change in US lead­er­ship and its ap­proach to non-na­tion­als, Warn­er might have faced un­fair treat­ment.

“The grav­i­ty of such a false rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­ing made by and on be­half of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al can­not be un­der­scored and can­not be con­doned. This was no doubt a se­ri­ous abuse of the court’s process and, at the very least, led to a breach of the claimant’s right to pro­tec­tion of the law,” Reid said in her oral judg­ment.

She added, “This breach is more sig­nif­i­cant when the court con­sid­ers the change in ad­min­is­tra­tion of the re­quest­ing State since the de­liv­ery of the board’s de­ci­sion in 2022, and notwith­stand­ing the ref­er­ences there­in to the board’s ac­cep­tance that the re­quest­ing State will act in good faith and ho­n­our its in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions, the new ad­min­is­tra­tion has very pub­licly and quite vo­cal­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed, and in fact demon­strat­ed, that when it comes to the rights of non-cit­i­zens, it is un­bur­dened by con­sid­er­a­tions of pro­ce­dur­al due process and the rule of law.”

Reid is ex­pect­ed to give a rul­ing against the State on Oc­to­ber 3 for al­low­ing the mat­ter to reach the Privy Coun­cil, giv­en that no spe­cial­ty arrange­ment was in place, as ad­mit­ted by Je­re­mie. She is al­so ex­pect­ed to hear sub­mis­sions and rule on costs for Warn­er.

As a civ­il judge, Reid said, usu­al­ly civ­il courts are slow to pro­nounce on crim­i­nal mat­ters, as it is best left to be dealt with by the mer­its of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case, but this was an out­lier.

“When it comes to the hand­ing over of cit­i­zens for ex­trater­ri­to­r­i­al pros­e­cu­tion, the Ex­tra­di­tion Act pro­vides the man­ner in which this is to be done and the pro­tec­tions that are re­quired to be put in place for the pro­tec­tion of our cit­i­zens. One of these pro­tec­tions re­lates to the rule of spe­cial­ty, which is de­signed to pro­tect cit­i­zens from be­ing pros­e­cut­ed for of­fences oth­er than those for which they are be­ing ex­tra­dit­ed.”

Warn­er thanked his team of at­tor­neys, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Fyard Ho­sein and in­clud­ing Sasha Bridge­mo­hans­ingh and Rishi Dass. He al­so thanked his fam­i­ly for stand­ing with him through­out the decade-long pros­e­cu­tion.

“For me, it’s a big event; it’s a red-let­ter day, and all I can say is I thank God. I al­so want to thank my fam­i­ly for stand­ing with me through these dif­fi­cult times. But that’s about all un­til I say much more lat­er on.”

Asked if he found the case to be a witch-hunt, Warn­er en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly said yes.

“I can’t see it any oth­er way ex­cept be­ing a po­lit­i­cal witch-hunt. This hap­pened to me at a time when I was serv­ing this coun­try at one of the high­est lev­els in Par­lia­ment, and you re­call I was at one time min­is­ter of works and trans­port and min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. I was serv­ing the coun­try when this hap­pened to me. So, I con­sid­er it a po­lit­i­cal witch hunt.”

When asked if his ser­vice may ex­tend to a re­turn to Par­lia­ment, Warn­er said, “No, I don’t know about that. I don’t know about that.”

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar when asked about the de­ci­sion re­gard­ing Warn­er yes­ter­day said, “I read the in­dict­ment in the Par­lia­ment at the time be­cause they were sent to us by the US, and those pro­ceed­ings went their way, and of course, in a court of law now, M. Warn­er will no longer have to be ex­tra­dit­ed. So some de­ci­sions are right on spot. Some are not a right on spot, and that is why we have the courts of law to make de­ci­sions when wrong­do­ing hap­pens with some of it.”