By Mark Baber
January 26 – Jack Warner’s solicitors have won a victory in their battle to prevent, or at least delay, their client’s extradition from Trinidad and Tobago to face charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering in the US.
High Court judge, Justice James Aboud, sitting in Port of Spain, has stayed extradition proceedings brought by the US against Warner, giving Warner’s legal team the chance to challenge the legality of the Extradition (Commonwealth and Foreign Territories) Act 1985, and the bilateral extradition treaty signed between Trinidad and Tobago and the United States in 1996.
The US seeks to put 72-year old Warner on trial for charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money-laundering, charges Warner denies. Warner has now been given until February 5 to file his lawsuit and the matter has been adjourned to February 26, when dates will be set for a hearing of the substantial case.
Warner’s counsel Fyard Hosein SC, warned against rushing the case to pander to the United States after lead counsel for the State, Douglas Mendes SC, suggesting Trinidad and Tobago could be seen as “lagging behind” the rest of the world in extraditing suspects to the US. Justice Aboud, meanwhile, made clear that he treated all extradition hearings with expediency.
Under Trinidad and Tobago law a bar to extradition would be if the trial will be prejudiced because of the individual’s race and this may provide some hope for Warner and his team, given the irrefutable evidence of institutional racism in all aspects of the US justice system, not least in jury selection and particularly in sentancing.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi signed the Authority to Proceed papers for Warner’s extradition in September, but Warner’s battle to avoid the vagaries of US justice could go on for several years and, given Warner’s financial resources, could end up being heard by the United Kingdom’s Judicial Committee of The Privy Council – which remains the court of final appeal for Trinidad and Tobago.
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