By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – The United States has formally asked Switzerland to extradite the seven senior FIFA officials arrested in Zurich in May on charges of alleged bribery and corruption – but it could take several months, possibly up to a year, for the request to be processed.
The move is the most significant development for weeks in the FBI investigation into “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption apparently involving some $150 million and stretching back 24 years.
The seven FIFA executives are among 14 football officials charged with racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies.
Formal extradition requests were submitted on Wednesday, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) confirmed. The officials, who include CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb, and their lawyers have 14 days to respond to the request, which could be extended “if sufficient grounds exist”.
After that, the FOJ would give its decision “within a few weeks”, but any ruling could be then challenged in both the federal criminal court and the federal supreme court.
Webb, a FIFA vice-president who led the organisation’s anti-discrimination body, was by far the most high-profile figure among the seven dramatically arrested in a dawn raid on their luxury hotel in the early hours of May 27 a couple of days before the FIFA Congress that re-elected Sepp Blatter as president.
Four days later Blatter announced he was stepping down as a result of the claims and growing pressure from FIFA’s sponsors.
Those suspected of paying the bribes were allegedly given media, marketing and sponsorship rights for football tournaments in the US and Latin America. The money was allegedly sent through the US banking system, hence the involvement of the FBI.
In a 47-count indictment unveiled in a US federal court in New York, the suspects were accused of participating “in a 24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”. Of the 14 charged, nine are FIFA officials and five are corporate executives.
The seven arrested in Zurich are being held in separate detention facilities around the city in order to avoid collusion and are all from Latin America and the Caribbean region though it is understood Webb, from the Cayman Islands, is also a UK citizen. Many of them have already indicated they will fight extradition. If found guilty, they face the prospect of 20 years in jail.
As well as Webb, those detained include CONMEBOL president Eugenio Figueredo, also a FIFA vice-president.
Although there is a bilateral extradition treaty between the US and Switzerland, the US government will have to show there’s a reasonable basis to believe the FIFA officials committed the crimes they’re charged with. One important consideration for the judge in any extradition case is whether the crimes alleged by the requesting state (in this case, the US) would also be punishable under the extraditing state (in this case, Switzerland).
This concept, known as “dual criminality,” is a requirement for extradition in many countries. For instance, in past cases, the US was not able to extradite white-collar criminals from Switzerland for certain tax-evasion schemes because what they did were not deemed crimes in Switzerland.
In other words, US officials would have to show that the crimes alleged in the case filed against the FIFA officials – wire fraud, money laundering, tax evasion – also constitute crimes in Switzerland.
The whole process will require a ton of paperwork and the materials may have to be translated into at least French and German. Extradition experts say this could drag on for over a year, especially if there’s an appeal. In extreme cases, some defendants in other European countries have been able to contest their extraditions to the US for over a decade.
If extradition is rejected, those charged can technically remain in Switzerland for the rest of their lives. But in that situation, the US would most likely issue so-called ‘red notices’ to authorities in other countries, the closest equivalent to an international arrest warrant. Such notices could prevent the officials from ever leaving Switzerland because they’d be arrested and detained once they stepped foot in a neighbouring country.
Switzerland has notoriously been one of the most difficult places to extradite from, especially for tax-related crimes, although the country has become more cooperative with international law enforcement in recent years. Among the high-profile defendants who successfully contested their extradition to the US from Switzerland include Roman Polanski, the Academy Award-winning director who pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. He was arrested as he arrived in Zurich for a film festival in September 2009 at the request of US authorities. Released from custody after lodging $4.5 million bail, he was placed under house arrest but the authorities did not extradite him because of potential technical faults in the US request regarding legal arguments that Polanski had already served his sentence before fleeing Los Angeles in 1978.
In another case, however, Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi was arrested while in Switzerland for medical checks at the US’s request in 1989 on charges of racketeering and fraud linked to theft by former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos. His extradition back to the US was concluded in a just three months. He was never convicted.
On the same day Swiss police carried out the Zurich arrests under the auspices of the FBI, the Swiss authorities opened a separate criminal investigation of their own into the awarding of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 event to Qatar. It has been reported that these cases do not appear to involve the same men, so the pending Swiss case would not interfere with the US request.
Blatter, who has decided not to travel to Canada for the World Cup final, has not yet been cited in either case. Should that change in terms of the US probe, the 79-year-old Swiss would have protection from extradition though if he were to move abroad at a time when an indictment was presented by the US authorities to the country he was visiting, he would be much more vulnerable.
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