Trinidad Court Blocks Extradition of Former FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner

A Trinidad and Tobago High Court has ruled that disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner will not be extradited to the United States to face long-standing corruption charges.

Justice Karen Reid delivered the ruling on Tuesday, declaring that the extradition proceedings against Warner were “permanently stayed” due to flaws in the extradition treaty between Trinidad and Tobago and the United States.

Warner, 82, was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in May 2015 on charges of racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery.

He had been on $370,000 bail while challenging the extradition request for nearly a decade.

His lead counsel, Fyard Hosein, successfully argued that there was no valid extradition agreement in place at the time the U.S. arrest warrant was issued.

The former football strongman, banned for life by FIFA in 2015, was a central figure in the corruption scandal that rocked world football, leading to multiple arrests in Zurich and prosecutions of senior FIFA officials. U.S. investigators accused him of using his position to enrich himself and of involvement in a 2010 World Cup bribery scheme.

Reacting to the judgment, Warner told AFP:
“Nothing could take away the pain and humiliation I felt for the past 10 years — and don’t forget my incarceration.”

Warner, who once served as president of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, was also part of the FIFA executive committee that controversially voted to award Russia and Qatar the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The ruling effectively ends a decade-long legal battle between the U.S. government and the former football administrator.