High Court to hear Warner’s extradition challenge in 2025

THE trial of former FIFA vice president Austin Jack Warner's new constitutional challenge to his extradition proceedings will take place in May 2025.

On September 19, Justice Karen Reid gave directions for filing submissions ahead of the May 29, 2025 trial.

Until then, Warner’s extradition hearing in the magistrates’ court remains on hold until the High Court rules.

Warner raised the new constitutional challenge last year, some eight years after he was indicted in the US on 29 charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering while he was vice president of football’s world governing body.

In March 2023, Warner, whom FIFA banned for life, raised a “speciality argument” under section 14(4) of the Constitution, complaining there were inconsistencies relating to the charges he faces in the US.

Former chief magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle referred the seven questions raised to the High Court, ruling they were “legally grounded and had merit.”

Warner’s argument relates to the arrangement between the US and TT for extradition. The speciality principle, by law, provides that someone who is extradited can be prosecuted or sentenced in the requesting state only for the offences for which extradition was granted, and not for any other crime allegedly committed before the extradition took place.

Warner’s application to have the chief magistrate refer his questions to the High Court was made soon after the Privy Council ruled on a previous challenge he had raised.

On November 17, 2022, the apex court paved the way for continuing the proceedings to extradite Warner to the US to face the fraud-related charges.

The London-based court held that the US’s request for Warner’s extradition was not unfair.

He had challenged the process against him and sought to quash the authority given to the magistrate to proceed with his extradition hearing.

The US requested his extradition on July 24, 2015, two months after a provision warrant was issued for his arrest. He surrendered to the police and asked for disclosure of material relevant to the ATP (authority to proceed), which gives the extradition court the go-ahead to begin hearing evidence to determine if the person should be extradited. This was refused.

After the 2015 general election, then-attorney general Faris Al-Rawi allowed Warner to make representations as to whether the authority to proceed (ATP) should be issued on condition he agreed to extend the time for the issuance of the authority to proceed. Warner refused. The magistrate eventually extended the time.

Since then, the extradition proceedings in the local court have remained stalled, with no evidence being led.

In February, in a radio interview, Warner was confident the case against him in the US was over because of a ruling by that country’s Supreme Court in January.

In that ruling, the court held that US prosecutors overreached their boundaries when they applied US laws to groups of people, many of them foreign nationals, who allegedly defrauded FIFA, another foreign organisation, with its headquarters in Switzerland.

The New York Times reported on January 27 that the Supreme Court last year limited a law that was key to the FIFA case. Last September, a federal judge, citing that law, threw out the convictions of two defendants linked to football corruption.

Warner has since filed legal action to determine how much in fees had been dispensed to attorneys up to the date of the request to have him extradited. His attorneys in this matter will cross-examine staff from the AG's office in July 2025. Reid is also presiding over the case.

Warner is represented by Fyard Hosein, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, Sasha Bridgemohansingh, Anil Maraj and Aadam Hosein.

Appearing for ASP Carlton Alleyne, for the US, are James Lewis, KC, Ravi Rajcoomar, SC, and Vanessa Gopaul.