Jack Warner vows not to give up extradition fight

A defiant Austin ‘Jack’ Warner said Thursday he will continue to fight his extradition to the United States to answer corruption charges, even after London’s Privy Council ruled that the extradition proceedings are not unlawful.

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The former football administrator, businessman and politician also defended the decision by football’s world governing body FIFA, of which he is a former vice-president, to give preference to South Africa, Russia and Qatar to host World Cup Finals. The award of the 2018 World Cup Final to Russia was among the issues at the center of corruption allegations against the 79-year-old Warner who is facing 12 charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

The Privy Council, Trinidad and Tobago’s highest court of appeal, dismissed Warner’s lawyers’ contention that the extradition proceedings in the magistrate’s court were unlawful, thus paving the way for the matter to resume.

“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,” Warner said in a post on his Facebook page on Thursday morning, following the Privy Council ruling.

“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, who said he had conferred with his lawyers before issuing the statement, also suggested that the Trinidad and Tobago courts should not have been involved in this matter.

He had challenged the authority to proceed (ATP) granted by the attorney general in September 2015 which had given the court the authority to begin extradition proceedings.

“I note that several European countries, including France and Switzerland, several Latin American countries, including Brazil, and several African and Middle Eastern countries have refused to extradite their citizens. Trinidad and Tobago is therefore an outlier,” Warner said.