Vybz Kartel Freed After Appeals Court Declines to Retry Murder Charges

A Jamaican courtroom of appeals declined Wednesday to retry Vybz Kartel after the dancehall star’s 2014 homicide conviction was overturned earlier this yr, making Kartel a free man after a decade in jail.

In March, the United Kingdom-based Privy Council overturned the conviction towards Kartel — who in 2014 was discovered responsible within the homicide of Clive “Lizard” Williams — discovering proof of juror misconduct in Kartel’s preliminary trial.

Nevertheless, the Privy Council left it to a three-person courtroom of appeals in Jamaica to in the end resolve whether or not to retry the homicide case towards Kartel and his co-defendants or let all of them free. On Wednesday, the Courtroom of Attraction opted for the latter, writing within the determination, “The pursuits of justice don’t require a brand new trial to be ordered,” the Jamaica Observer reviews.

The preliminary trial towards Kartel and three co-defendants went on for simply over two months earlier than the 4 males had been convicted on March 14, 2014. Prosecutors argued that Williams was killed over lacking weapons, and that Kartel had lured Williams to his dwelling earlier than Williams was crushed to loss of life.

On the time, Jamaican police claimed in testimony that they noticed a textual content on Kartel’s telephone stating that Williams’ physique was turned to “mincemeat.” Williams’ physique was by no means discovered. 

Through the homicide trial, one juror was accused of providing bribes to different jurors, and after the courtroom turned conscious of that allegation, the choose selected to proceed the trial as an alternative of dismissing. Potential juror misconduct turned the focus of Kartel’s argument in his yearslong appeals course of.

Kartel was one of many greatest artists in Jamaica on the time of his conviction, and he had collaborated with artists together with Rihanna, Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes, and Pitbull. He continued to launch music whereas behind bars, together with the 2016 single “Fever.”