PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar last night said she was standing by her embattled senior cabinet minister, Austin “Jack Warner, who was temporarily suspended by the International Football Federation (FIFA) while allegations of bribery against him are investigated.
In a statement issued here, Persad Bissessar said that it is a fundamental tenet of the rule of law that a man is innocent until proven guilty.
““This right is enshrined in the constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and is an important pillar in our system of justice. And so, the decision by FIFA to initiate a “provisional suspension” of its vice president Jack Warner, pending investigation is not a determination of guilt but part of a process that we trust will be fair and unprejudiced,” she said.
Football’s world governing body on Sunday pledged to investigate bribery allegations against Warner, former presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam and two Caribbean Football Union (CFU) officials, temporarily suspending them from activity connected with the game.
Warner and Bin Hammam have been accused of offering US$40,000 to national associations of the CFU at a meeting on May 10 and 11 here, in return for their votes in the FIFA presidential election. Bin Hammam was to face incumbent FIFA president Sepp Blatter for the top post in the game in an election on June 1 in Zurich, Switzerland. CFU officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester were also suspended until a full investigation into bribery allegations against them was conducted.
Warner, who is also the Minister of Works and Transport in the five-member coalition administration here, has already reacted bitterly to the suspension describing it “as an abuse of the process and achieves no real purpose as stated in the decision and again demonstrates the bias of their enquiry. (CMC)
