San Juan, June 13 (IANS) Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner has dismissed calls by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Legal Affairs Minister Prakash Ramadhar for him to accept extradition to the United States to face corruption charges.
The governing People’s Partnership coalition wants him to forgo his constitutional right to contest extradition, Warner said on Thursday night at a meeting of his Independent Liberal Party, reports Efe.
“Why would Prakash Ramadhar, whose party will not even win one seat in the next general election, call upon me to give up my right as a citizen to challenge the U.S. application to have me extradited to face charges under their judicial system?,” Warner said.
Warner is among nine FIFA executive committee members indicted by the U.S. in connection with an investigation of FIFA.
He told the party meeting that he would be seeking no special favors from Trinidadian authorities.
“I am not seeking to abscond or shirk my responsibility of appearing before the courts. I just want justice to be done. I want my day in court and after presenting my side of the argument; I want the courts to decide. This is what we, as citizens, want,” Warner said.
Warner’s Sunshine newspaper has in recent weeks published copies of cancelled cheques to support his claim that he funded prime minister’s party and paid for a house where Persad-Bissessar stayed in 2010.
“Ask Kamla about the many financial favours she received from my hand, but when she received it she never said she did not want anything from ‘people like this’,” he told supporters.