Jack Warner says he will spill “an avalanche” of secrets, including the connection between Trinidad and Tobago’s 2010 election and FIFA money, information about Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and financial transactions at FIFA in which president Sepp Blatter was involved.
On the same day that Interpol issued an international wanted persons alert for him and five others facing corruption charges related to their roles at FIFA, Warner said in a paid televised address that he had compiled a comprehensive and detailed series of documents, including cheques and corroborated statements, and placed them in the hands of his lawyers.
“By doing so, I have in effect placed the outcome of those matters beyond even my own reach. Retracting them is now an impossibility. There can be no turning back,” Warner said in his almost eight-minute address.
He added that he had instructed his lawyers to contact law enforcement authorities in and outside Trinidad and Tobago about the information he had provided.
Although not giving specifics, the 72-year-old former FIFA vice president, who has been indicted in the United States on charges of racketeering, bribery, wire fraud and money laundering, said the documents related to several matters including: the link between FIFA, its funding and him; the link between FIFA, its funding and the United National Congress and the People’s Partnership government in the 2010 general election; his knowledge of financial transactions at FIFA including, but not limited to, Blatter who announced his plan to resign just four days after being re-elected for the fifth time as FIFA president; and matters involving Persad-Bissessar.
“I apologize to the people of Trinidad and Tobago for not disclosing my knowledge of these matters before. My judgement was initially that the People’s Partnership, as bad as it was, and still is, was better for this country than any other government, except possibly a government of the ILP [Independent Liberal Party which he leads],” Warner said.
“I will no longer keep secrets for them who now seek to destroy the country which I love.” Warner, who at one point in the recording described himself as “a lone isolated soldier”, again claimed that he honestly feared for his life.
On Tuesday, he released copies of five cheques totalling just over TT$1.7 million (US$267,950) paid by one of his companies, Jamad Limited, to Ross Advertising which handled the People’s Partnership’s election campaign in the weeks leading up to the May 24 election. At the time, Warner was FIFA vice-president.
Persad-Bissessar has insisted that she did not receive any funding from Warner.
However, he was adamant in his address last night. “I threw a considerable amount of my resources into supporting the person who today has become the current Prime Minister of this country and the political leader of the United National Congress. I shall disclose the precise source of those resources at another time,” he said.
Warner is currently out on TT$2.5 million (US$394,600) bail after appearing in court in relation to the US effort to extradite him to face the FIFA corruption charges.
