Jack Warner appoints lawyer Ed Fitzgerald QC, who previously represented Myra Hindley, Maxine Carr and Abu Hamza

Fitzgerald says 'everybody is entitled to a fair trial

The $10 million was paid into accounts controlled by Jack Warner, Fifa Vice President and CONCACAF President (JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images)

Jack Warner, the disgraced former Fifa vice-president, has appointed leading QC Ed Fitzgerald, a man known for representing controversial figures.

Fitzgerald, 61, is a leading QC based in London and staunch opponent of capital punishment who has successfully taken on many death row cases and been handed several human rights legal awards.

Warner is accused of taking a $10million (£6.4m) bribe to vote for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup and is fighting against extradition to the USA.

Ed Fitzgerald QC (Getty Images)

Over the course of his career, Mr Fitzgerald has represented Moors murderer Myra Hindley, several members of the IRA, one of the killers of toddler James Bulger, Maxine Carr, the ex-girlfriend of Soham murderer Ian Huntley, and radical cleric Abu Hamza.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2007, where he was described as defending some of the "most loathed people in society", Fitzgerald said he took on such cases as it would be wrong for such people to be denied legal representation.

"Some people ask, 'Why are you spending your life defending terrible people?', he said.

"The answer is that everybody is entitled to a fair trial. It would be terrible if we stopped defending people because they're unpopular. The legal process is an attempt to civilise our emotions of revenge.

"Anything that's against lynch law seems to me to be a good thing."

Warner has been indicted by the US justice department on eight counts of football-related corruption and is currently on bail in Trinidad.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Fitzgerald has also represented Trinidad businessman Steve Ferguson who along with fellow financier Ishwar Galbaransingh has successfully resisted extradition to the USA for the last 10 years.

Fitzgerald is viewed with affection and admiration by his peers. His fellow QC David Pannick described him as "a Rolls-Royce in the cab-rank of barristers", while the European Human Rights Law Review produced a special issue, guest edited by former director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer, to mark his 60th birthday.

Additional reporting from PA