00:00Former FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has brought a constitutional claim challenging his extradition,
00:06arguing that the absence of a written agreement barring prosecution for any offenses not listed in an approved extradition request
00:14renders the authority to proceed invalid.
00:18However, former AG Faris al-Rawi maintains that the extradition law speaks to arrangements, not specifically agreements.
00:27Our extradition law says in Section 8 that you must have, Section 8.3, 8.2, 8.3, and 8.5,
00:36you must have a specialty arrangement with the United States.
00:41It does not say that an arrangement must be in writing.
00:45It does not specify the nature of that arrangement.
00:49And the law says in Section 8.5, once you produce the certificate, that's all you need to demonstrate that there is the arrangement.
01:01The certificate formally requests the transfer of an individual from one country to another.
01:07Al-Rawi further notes that extraditions have always been carried out in this manner,
01:13and points out that this challenge brings all extraditions into question.
01:17The United States of America, in exercising its request for extradition, pursuant to our extradition law,
01:27and operating upon the treaty which operates with that law,
01:31they have made approximately, let's round it up to 50 requests, just under 50.
01:37Trinidad and Tobago has entertained all of those requests.
01:40And what Trinidad and Tobago has done for the many decades is that it has signed something called a specialty certificate,
01:49issued under Section 8.5 of the law.
01:51And that specialty certificate says that the Attorney General certifies that you will not be extradited
01:58for matters to be prosecuted broader than what you're being sent for.
02:03He further believes this nullifies Warner's concerns about the scope of his prosecution,
02:09once extradited, and says he awaits the unfolding of the investigation,
02:15as Jack Warner's extradition case spans the tenures of several former AGs, including the current one.
02:22He has said he's investigating his predecessors.
02:27I'm telling you the predecessors include him, because he signed specialty certificates too.
02:32Can I exclude yourself from that?
02:34So if you're going to talk about specialty certificate,
02:37is Mr. Ferguson going to come down and complain about his specialty certificate?
02:42The former AGs also raising red flags over the fact that the state's new and recently appointed legal counsel
02:49has extended an apology to Jack Warner.
02:52I was surprised.
02:55I've only read the reports, I didn't hear it in court myself,
02:58that Mr. Strang would give an apology and a concession,
03:03but yet the letter says there is an investigation to happen,
03:07and people have to be told that seems rather precipitous and premature,
03:12if not dangerous.
03:14Runessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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