Warner gets to question AG's ministry officials on extradition lawyers fees

A HIGH COURT judge has ordered the State to pay former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner’s legal costs of an application to cross-examine Office of the Attorney General’s officials who have provided witness statements in his challenge against the State.

Warner wants the ministry’s permanent secretary to disclose all invoices, fee requisitions and payments to “all barristers, solicitors and attorneys” in ongoing extradition proceedings against him.

Justice Karen Reid made the order allowing Warner to question two ministry officials on certain discrepancies in their evidence.

“The discrepancies have to be explained.”

These relate to letters written to foreign attorneys and local attorneys representing the State in the extradition proceedings.

Warner’s attorney Richard Jaggasar will only get to question the two officials on that narrow aspect relating to which attorney was written to for information and from whom the information was already disclosed to the former government minister.

The judge made it clear she would not allow questions to identify the attorneys since, she said, that was a matter for her to determine at trial.

She also ordered the State to pay $5,200 in costs although it was strongly resisted by lead State attorney, Russell Martineau, SC, who said he did not think Warner was entitled to costs as he had “very limited success” in his application.

In his application to cross-examine the ministry’s officials, Jaggasar said there were discrepancies in the information provided so far.

In a freedom-of-information request in July 2023, Warner wanted to know how much money was spent to hire attorneys to extradite him to the US, where he faces 29 charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering while he was vice president of football’s world governing body.

The information relates to all the court matters from 2015-2023, including the committal proceedings in the magistrates’ court and the application to join the US in previous proceedings in the High Court and Court of Appeal, the Privy Council proceedings, as well as his referral application to the High Court.

In October 2023, Warner was told there were no “sufficiently strong public interests” to release the information. The permanent secretary also said these interests would be best served by refusing access to the invoices and fee requisitions for the law firms at each stage of the legal proceedings and preserving attorney/client privilege.

Warner then applied for judicial review in December and was permitted to advance his case.

In October, the judge ruled on evidential objections and previously set July 2025 as the tentative date for the matter to go to trial.