Port-of-Spain: World governing football body, FIFA has announced that it has appointed the former director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to lead investigations into bribery claims against its Vice-President, Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner.
This comes as new witnesses have come forward with claims that they can support the accusations that Warner and Mohammed Bin Hammam paid bribes to members of the Caribbean Football Union at the Hyatt Hotel in Port-of-Spain last month.
The independent investigation is being led by the former director of the FBI Louis Freeh, who is now working under the direction of the Fifa Ethics Committee.
Since Freeh opened the investigation last week a number of national associations present at a meeting in Trinidad, at which US$1 million in bribes are alleged to have been offered, have made contact.
The British Telegraph has reported that Freeh has begun interviewing witnesses who attended the CFU meeting, including those who provided statements and sworn affidavits to the original investigation ordered by American Fifa executive committee member Chuck Blazer.
Former US federal prosecutor John Collins has compiled a report based on witness statements from seven Caribbean football officials from four countries, as well as testimony from Blazer.
Blazer is expected to be interviewed by Freeh, as well as Anton Sealey, the president of the Bahamas Football Association who was first to raise the alleged bribes with Blazer
The new witnesses have come forward since Blazer warned members of the CFU earlier this week to return any money they may have been offered, or face investigation.
they were said to have been offered $40,000 in brown envelopes in exchange for their vote in the presidential election.
Warner has submitted a lengthy defence of his conduct, dismissing the allegations as a fabrication and that his statement is accompanied by supporting statements from 13 Caribbean nations who say that the allegations are false.
Those statements will also now be closely scrutinised by Freeh.
The 61-year-old Freeh served as an FBI special agent before becoming an attorney, and made his name as lead prosecutor in a notorious New York Mafia trial in the 1980s. He was director of the FBI for eight years between 1993 and 2001.
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