Trinidad ends US extradition bid for ex-FIFA vice-president Warner

Trinidad and Tobago will not extradite disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner to the United States, where he has been charged with corruption, a judge said on Tuesday.

Warner, 82, has been banned for life by FIFA over a 2015 corruption scandal that engulfed world football’s governing body and led to FBI arrests in Zurich and the prosecution of several top officials.

Warner, a Trinidadian citizen, was indicted by the United States Department of Justice in May, 2015 and an arrest warrant was issued.

But, after a 10-year-long saga, a high court judge in his native Trinidad found that the extradition agreement between the two countries was flawed.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Warner’s lead attorney, Fyard Hosein, argued that no valid extradition agreement existed at the time that the arrest warrant was issued.

“The present extradition proceedings are permanently stayed,” judge Karen Reid said at the end of the high court hearing, confirming that Warner would be released from custody.

Warner was on $370,000 bail while challenging the extradition on charges including racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery.

US authorities accused him of leveraging his positions with the football world for personal gain and of involvement in a 2010 World Cup bribery scheme.

Warner was one of the members of FIFA’s executive committee who voted to hand Russia and Qatar hosting rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments, respectively.

“Nothing could take away the pain and humiliation I felt for the past 10 years and don’t forget my incarceration,” Warner told AFP after the hearing.

Warner was the president of the Trinidad and Tobago football federation during the 2006 World Cup, the only time the country had ever qualified for the tournament.