Disgraced former FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, has hired the lawyer who represented Myra Hindley in his bid to avoid extradition to the United States (U.S.).
Warner has been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department on eight counts of football related corruption and is on bail in Trinidad.
He is accused of taking a $10 million (£6.4m) bribe to back South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 World Cup.
Warner, former head of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, resigned from FIFA in 2011 after being embroiled in the corruption scandal although he insists he is innocent.
Edward Fitzgerald (QC) is now advising Warner, having previously been involved in such high-profile cases as Abu Hamza, Maxine Carr and Jon Venables.
He has also represented Trinidad businessman Steve Ferguson who successfully resisted extradition to the States for ten years.
Fitzgerald, who has won human rights awards for his cases challenging death sentences, has been involved in many high-profile cases.
These include Abu Hamza, and Mary Bell and Maxine Carr, Bulger killer Jon Venables, important IRA cases, human rights issues, and a number of murderers on America’s ‘Death Row’.
Warner has stated: “I have been afforded no due process and I have not even been questioned in this matter. I reiterate that I am innocent of any charges.”
Warner’s two sons, Daryll and Daryan, and his former deputy Chuck Blazer, have all pleaded guilty to related charges among 18 people who have been indicted by U.S. authorities.
Seven of them, including Warner’s successor as CONCACAF President, Jeffrey Webb, are in custody in Switzerland pending extradition hearings.
Fitzgerald also helped quash the conviction of Stephen Downing, who wrongly spent 27 years in jail for the notorious ‘Bakewell Tart’ murder.
