For­mer Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has lost his ap­peal over the dis­missal of his law­suit chal­leng­ing the Unit­ed States (US) ex­tra­di­tion re­quest for him.

Three Judges of the Court of Ap­peal up­held the de­ci­sion of Jus­tice James Aboud to dis­miss his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit in Sep­tem­ber, 2017.

Their de­ci­sion does not mean that Warn­er's ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings will fi­nal­ly com­mence be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle as the judges grant­ed a stay pend­ing the fil­ing of Warn­er's ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil.

Warn­er is chal­leng­ing the pro­ce­dure adopt­ed by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) in sign­ing off on the US’s re­quest for his ex­tra­di­tion, made in May 2015.

Warn­er is al­leg­ing that this coun­try’s ex­tra­di­tion treaty with the US con­tra­dicts the Ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and For­eign Ter­ri­to­ries) Act. They were claim­ing that, in pass­ing the act, Par­lia­ment af­ford­ed cit­i­zens cer­tain pro­tec­tions which are ig­nored by the in­ter­na­tion­al treaty.

In his 50-page judge­ment, Aboud agreed that there were mi­nor in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween the treaty and leg­is­la­tion, but said Warn­er's con­cerns were ex­ag­ger­at­ed and spec­u­la­tive.

Aboud al­so not­ed that Warn­er's rights would be pro­tect­ed dur­ing the even­tu­al ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings be­fore Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle as she would have to ap­ply lo­cal laws to the charges against Warn­er al­leged in the US ex­tra­di­tion re­quest.

Warn­er was al­so com­plain­ing that AG Faris Al-Rawi failed to give his at­tor­neys a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions to him be­fore he signed off on the Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed, which was re­quired to kick off the pro­ceed­ings in the mag­is­trates' court.

Aboud ruled that Warn­er did not have a right to be con­sult­ed.

WARN­ER’S CASE

Warn­er, 73, 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 and De­part­ment of Jus­tice.

Sev­er­al have plead­ed guilty to the charges and are serv­ing sen­tences in the US.