Independent Liberal Party (ILP) interim leader Jack Warner yesterday carried out on his earlier threat by sending a pre-action protocol letter to the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf), Sir David Simmons and all the authors of a report which alleged he (Warner) was involved in financial wrongdoing during his tenure at the regional football body. Warner is demanding an apology and withdrawal, to be published internationally, within 28 days and damages and costs.
If Concacaf and Simmons did not withdraw the allegations against Warner and apologise, he would begin court proceedings against them, the letter warned. Warner yesterday told the T&T Guardian he did not expect Concacaf to settle via a withdrawal, apology and damages and costs. “I expect a fight. But I am doing all that is legally right on the instruction of QC Mitchell. What he says I will do,” he said.
Warner added that “for who believe, no further explanation is necessary and for those who don’t believe, no further explanation is possible.” He said he had been waiting until after the Chaguanas West by-election to deal with the matter because he did not want it to be viewed as an election ploy to gain sympathy. Simmons headed the Concacaf Integrity Committee which produced a damning report last April 18 on Warner, former Fifa vice-president and Concacaf president.
The report came after the committee interviewed several Concacaf officials but Warner refused to appear before it to answer allegations made against him. The pre-action letter was sent yesterday from Warner’s local attorney, Keith Scotland, to Simmons at the address of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Port-of-Spain, where Simmons sits as chairman of the commission of enquiry into the 1990 attempted coup. A copy of the letter was also sent to the president of Concacaf.
Scotland and a team of attorneys are acting on the guidance of Andrew Mitchell, QC. Scotland said in the letter: “As a consequence of the said damning, unjustifiable, reckless and clearly libellous statements published in the local, regional and international media and on the World Wide Web, my client’s good name and reputation has been and continues to be damaged.
“My client is the former minister of national security and acting prime minister from time-to- time of the People’s Partnership Government in Trinidad and Tobago. “He was in the footballing world one of the foremost leaders of the development of football in the region and was recognised across the world as someone who had done more than anyone to develop the game of football in the Concacaf region. ”My client, therefore ,is well known throughout Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean region and internationally.”
Scotland said an immediate withdrawal and apology, the terms of which to be settled by Warner’s legal team, will serve to mitigate the damage his client was suffering. He said the statements in the Concacaf report were categorised as findings of fact and, therefore, it could not be disputed that those statements constituted allegations of fact as opposed to mere comments.
“Mr Warner is clear that you knew or ought to have known that any allegation of criminal fraud on his part should have been proven beyond reasonable doubt,” Scotland said. Warner resigned as national security minister, MP for Chaguanas West and UNC chairman shortly after the publication of the report and claims of mounting pressure to resign.
His resignation led to a chain of events, including his recontesting of Chaguanas West and the subsequent formation of his own party, the ILP, after he was rejected as a UNC candidate.