T&T: Jack Warner returns

 CMC – More than 10 years after the disgraced international football executive, Austin Jack Warner, was booted out of the coalition People’s Partnership government and told to go “clear” his name of several corruption-related charges in the United States, he has returned to the political hustings hoping to boost the chances of the opposition party in the August 14 Local Government Elections.

In April 2013, Warner was forced to resign from the United National Congress (UNC)-led People’s Partnership government with then prime minister Kamla Persad Bissessar later indicating that, “I have said repeatedly to Mr. Warner, clear your name and come back home.

“As long as Mr. Warner does not clear his name, then we can’t accept him in the House of the Rising  Sun. It’s as simple as that,” she added.
But on Monday night, dressed in a yellow shirt, the colour of the UNC, where he once served as chairman, Warner, 80, told party supporters, “this kind of greetings I have just received, I am asking myself why wasn’t I here before”.

In 2015, the International Football Federation (FIFA) banned Warner, who had served as its vice president from 1990-2011, from all soccer-related activities for life.

US prosecutors allege that from as far back as 1990, Warner leveraged his influence and exploited his official positions for personal gain.

Among other things, he is accused of receiving five million US dollars in bribes – sent via more than two dozen separate wire transfers, from 10 different shell companies, to a Caribbean Football Union account he controlled at Republic Bank in Trinidad and Tobago – to vote for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup.

Warner was one of 14 defendants charged in connection with the 24-year scheme that prosecutors alleged was designed to “enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”.

On November 17, 2022, the Privy Council, Trinidad and Tobago’s highest court, paved the way for the continuation of the proceedings to extradite Warner to the US to face fraud-related charges.

The Privy Council had dismissed Warner’s lawyers’ contention that the extradition request was unlawful.

But last month, Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle said seven questions raised by  Warner regarding his extradition to the United States were legally grounded and had merit.

Warner has challenged the constitutionality of an alleged agreement that former attorney general Faris Al-Rawi signed with the US in 2015 before he signed off on the authority for the chief magistrate to go ahead with the extradition proceedings for Warner.

The Chief Magistrate said Warner’s application was not frivolous or vexatious, and referred Warner’s questions to the High Court for its immediate attention.

As he addressed the UNC supporters at the Center of Excellence, along the east-west corridor, and considered by his detractors and accusers to be a symbol of his wealth gained through his FIFA days, Warner was greeted with signs that read “Welcome Back Home”.

Warner, who joined Persad Bissessar and former police commissioner Gary Griffith, who heads the National Transformation Alliance (NTA) on the platform, described the UNC leader as “the Mandela of local politics” for her vision of national unity and ridiculed two senior government ministers who have promised to give him “a one-way ticket to the United States” and a  red card.

“Tonight, I am here by choice. We come together to fight the common enemy. Nothing is gained by division. This country is heading down into an abyss quickly, and our collective efforts must be brought together to save this country,” said Warner, who said he intends to dismantle his Independent Liberal Party (ILP) that had failed to make any impression in the past general election.

And tonight…I say Kamla Persad-Bissessar is the Mandela of local politics, and that’s why I am here,” Warner said, adding “many persons have asked me why I’m coming to this meeting (saying), ‘But Jack Warner, you mad, you and Kamla again, and a whole amount of garbage. But those are the very same people who would spend day and night criticising (Prime Minister Dr Keith) Rowley and the PNM but would stay on the fence and do nothing about it. I am here to do something about it”

He defended his decision to wear a yellow shirt without the party’s emblem saying he would only do so when he has earned the right to do so.

“And I will tell you this because I am aware that there are some persons who will be in a party at 8 am and be embraced by the prime minister at noon. Others will see a cheque for TT$150,000 (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) and will leave just so. I will come and work with UNC and NTA  and earn my dues.”

“When I earn my dues, I will convene a meeting with the ILP and disband it. The ILP has to be formally reintegrated with the UNC. We are one family, one family, one family,” Warner said.

“And with Gary and myself and the best prime minister this country has ever seen, you have no cause for fear, and that is why on August the 14th, I’m asking you to come out in your numbers. Don’t tote, vote!”

In her address to the meeting, Persad Bissessar said that she had previously invited smaller political parties to join the UNC in contesting the elections against the People’s National Movement (PNM).

“My friends united we can, together we will stand and wipe the wicked Rowley out of the face of the map,” she added.

About The Author