By Andrew Warshaw
January 7 – One month after being arrested as part of the new wave of US justice department indictments in the FIFA corruption scandal, former FIFA vice-president Alfredo Hawit has agreed to his extradition from Switzerland.
Hawit, the third president of CONCACAF to fall foul of US investigators, was among 16 current and former senior football officials indicted in early December, bringing to 41 the number of individuals and entities – such as sports marketing companies – charged to date in the burgeoning crisis.
A statement from the Swiss justice department, confirming Hawit’s extradition agreement, said the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York had accused the Honduran of “accepting bribes totalling millions of dollars in connection with the sale to various sports marketing firms of marketing rights to football tournaments in Latin America.”
Hawit had resisted the extradition application until after its formal submission by the US authorities.
When the transfer is carried out, understood to be within the next 10 days, Hawit will become the fifth FIFA official extradited by Switzerland to the US to face corruption charges.
A total of nine officials were arrested during two raids at the five-star Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich on May 27 and December 3, by Swiss police acting on US warrants. Jeffrey Webb, who ran CONCACAF at the time, Brazilian Jose Maria Marin, Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay and Costa Rica’s Eduardo Li have already been transferred across the Atlantic. Three others – Julio Rocha of Nicaragua, British-born Costas Takkas and Venezuela’s Rafael Esquivel – are still fighting extradition.
Eugenio Figueredo, former president of CONMEBOL, was extradited to his home country of Uruguay after Switzerland gave priority to a separate Montevideo case against one of its own citizens.
Switzerland has also handed over an initial package of bank documents to US prosecutors requested as evidence in the ongoing cases.
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