FIFA, Executive Jack Warner speaks during a news conference in this June 2, 2011 photo.
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — Former FIFA vice president Jack Warner left a Trinidad jail by ambulance on Thursday, a day after he was charged in a US corruption case that has led to the arrests ofmore than a dozen international soccer officials and businessmen.
Judicial officer Ibrahim Ali said Warner complained of exhaustion and was not able to face questions from reporters gathered for several hours outside the jail in this twin-island Caribbean nation off the coast of Venezuela.
But a short while later, Warner donned a cap and a garland of flowers to give a lengthy, defiant speech before a crowd of raucous supporters in the district he represents as an opposition member of Parliament.
“If I have been thiefing FIFA money for 30 years, who give me the money? How come he is not charged? Why only persons from Third World countries have been charged?” Warner said, drawing hoots and applause from partisans wearing green-colored shirts of his Independent Liberal Party./AP