State must pay Jack

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

For­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent and ex-gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jack Warn­er has won a de­ci­sive le­gal vic­to­ry af­ter the High Court per­ma­nent­ly stayed the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings brought against him by the Unit­ed States, bring­ing to an end a decade-long le­gal bat­tle that reached the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil.

In a 71-page judg­ment de­liv­ered yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Karen Reid ruled that Warn­er’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been breached through the con­duct of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al dur­ing the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings and or­dered that the case be per­ma­nent­ly halt­ed.

The court al­so award­ed Warn­er dam­ages to be as­sessed on Sep­tem­ber 30, pro­hib­it­ed the State from en­forc­ing pre­vi­ous costs or­ders against him and or­dered the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to pay his le­gal costs.

The case stemmed from a 2015 re­quest by the Unit­ed States to ex­tra­dite Warn­er on cor­rup­tion, fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing charges linked to a FI­FA cor­rup­tion scan­dal.

Jus­tice Reid found that while the orig­i­nal is­suance of the Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed was not im­prop­er, the State lat­er failed in its du­ty of can­dour by al­low­ing the courts to be­lieve that a spe­cial or be­spoke ex­tra­di­tion arrange­ment ex­ist­ed be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States when, in fact, no such arrange­ment ex­ist­ed.

The judge said the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice was cul­pa­ble for breach­ing its du­ty of can­dour and found that Warn­er had been de­prived of con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tions, in­clud­ing the right to lib­er­ty and the pro­tec­tion of the law. She de­scribed the mis­con­duct as se­ri­ous, say­ing it amount­ed to an abuse of the court’s process.

Jus­tice Reid re­ject­ed Warn­er’s claim that the State had en­gaged in a de­lib­er­ate con­spir­a­cy from the out­set to mis­lead the courts. In­stead, she con­clud­ed the mat­ter evolved over time, with the ini­tial cer­tifi­cate be­ing is­sued in line with long­stand­ing prac­tice. How­ev­er, once it be­came known that there was no sep­a­rate spe­cial­ty arrange­ment, the State failed to cor­rect the mis­tak­en im­pres­sion cre­at­ed be­fore the High Court, Court of Ap­peal and ul­ti­mate­ly the Privy Coun­cil. That fail­ure, she ruled, re­sult­ed in con­sti­tu­tion­al breach­es.

The judg­ment not­ed that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, af­ter tak­ing of­fice in 2025, con­duct­ed an ex­ten­sive in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and ac­knowl­edged that the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al had failed in its du­ty of can­dour by not cor­rect­ing the courts’ mis­un­der­stand­ing re­gard­ing the ex­is­tence of a be­spoke spe­cial­ty arrange­ment.

Jus­tice Reid found that the con­tin­ued ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings af­ter those mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions had been made could not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue and or­dered that they be per­ma­nent­ly stayed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter the rul­ing, Warn­er wel­comed the de­ci­sion but said the decade-long or­deal had tak­en an enor­mous per­son­al and fi­nan­cial toll.

“I’m hap­py with the judg­ment but I’m still a bit­ter per­son be­cause my life has been de­stroyed, my busi­ness­es have gone through the roof, my fam­i­ly has been put to shame and this hasn’t been fair to me for 10 years. Worst yet, the mon­ey I have spent in le­gal fees is in­sur­mount­able, so in a sense I’m hap­py, but I’m sad that I had to go through all of this to be freed,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er said he now hopes the dam­ages phase of the pro­ceed­ings will pro­vide some mea­sure of com­pen­sa­tion for what he be­lieves he has lost.

“Sep­tem­ber 30 is the big day be­cause I have been stripped of every­thing over the last 10 years. I’ve moved from hero to ze­ro, and there­fore I sin­cere­ly hope that the Gov­ern­ment will be able to, in some way, jus­ti­fy fi­nan­cial­ly what I have gone through. They can’t re­place it but hope­ful­ly they can some­how jus­ti­fy it.”

The rul­ing marks the con­clu­sion of one of T&T’s longest-run­ning ex­tra­di­tion mat­ters. Warn­er was first ar­rest­ed in May 2015, af­ter US au­thor­i­ties re­quest­ed his ex­tra­di­tion in con­nec­tion with the sweep­ing FI­FA cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He chal­lenged the Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed through ju­di­cial re­view, but his chal­lenges were dis­missed by the High Court, Court of Ap­peal and the Privy Coun­cil, be­fore fresh con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues aris­ing from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s con­duct were re­ferred to the High Court for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Jus­tice Reid ul­ti­mate­ly de­clared that the State’s con­duct breached Warn­er’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, per­ma­nent­ly halt­ed the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings and left the ques­tion of com­pen­sa­tion to be de­ter­mined lat­er this year.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Garvin Nicholas, who was at­tor­ney gen­er­al at the time the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings be­gan, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris al-Rawi, who took over the reins in Sep­tem­ber 2015, and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. How­ev­er, there was no com­ment from ei­ther of them up to press time.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent ques­tions to the US Em­bassy in T&T and is await­ing their re­sponse.

Time­line of Jack Warn­er’s ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings:

May 27, 2015 - Warn­er ar­rest­ed af­ter the US re­quests his ex­tra­di­tion.

Ju­ly 16, 2015 - Unit­ed States for­mal­ly sub­mits ex­tra­di­tion re­quest.

Sep­tem­ber 21, 2015 - For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi is­sues Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed.

No­vem­ber 2015 - Warn­er files ju­di­cial re­view chal­leng­ing the Au­thor­i­ty to Pro­ceed.

Sep­tem­ber 27, 2017 - High Court dis­miss­es ju­di­cial re­view.

June 11, 2019 - Court of Ap­peal dis­miss­es Warn­er’s ap­peal.

De­cem­ber 17, 2022 - Privy Coun­cil dis­miss­es fi­nal ap­peal, al­low­ing ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings to re­sume.

Jan­u­ary 2023 - Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest rais­es ques­tions about the al­leged spe­cial­ty arrange­ment.

June 26, 2023 - Chief Mag­is­trate refers con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tions to the High Court.

Sep­tem­ber 2025 - At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie ac­knowl­edges breach of the du­ty of can­dour dur­ing pro­ceed­ings.

Ju­ly 17, 2026 - Jus­tice Karen Reid per­ma­nent­ly stays the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings and awards Warn­er dam­ages to be as­sessed.

Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026 - High Court to as­sess dam­ages un­less par­ties reach agree­ment.