Vybz Kartel’s appeal before UK Privy Council to be live-streamed

Streaming is slated to begin at 5:30 am Jamaica Time.

The hearing starts February 14 and ends February 15, and will be heard by justices Lord Reed, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lord Briggs, Lord Burrows, and Lady Simler.

Click here to watch live stream.

Kartel, dancehall’s biggest star for the last two decades, along with Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John, were convicted of murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Campbell in March 2014.

The men were found guilty in the Home Circuit Court by a panel of jurors in a trial lasting 64 days for the August 16, 2011 murder of Campbell.

Through their attorneys the men lodged an appealed but this was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

According to a summary of the case file before the UK Privy Council, which is Jamaica’s highest court, the appellants are contending that:

• Should the trial judge have excluded the telecommunications evidence relied on by the prosecution?
• How should the judge have handled the allegations that there were attempts to bribe members of the jury during the trial? Should the jury (or the particular juror said to have offered the bribes) have been discharged?
• Was the judge wrong to invite the jury to reach a verdict late in the day, given the special circumstances of the case?

The prosecution had successfully argued all four plotted and executed the murder of Williams who failed to return two illegal guns given to him by Vybz Kartel, whose given name at birth is Adidja Palmer.

Neither Mr Williams nor his body has been found since.

On September 30, 2011, police investigators arrested Kartel and his co-accused, seizing their mobile phones in the process.

Data from these cellular phones were retrieved by the police after a formal request was filed with telecommunications company Digicel. However, lawyers of the defendants challenged this, citing it as a breach under the Interception of Communications Act, as well as a breach of their clients’ protection of privacy of communication guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in the Jamaican Constitution.

But the trial judge disagreed and allowed the data from the cell phones into evidence.

The judge did not take any action surrounding allegations of a juror attempting to bribe others on the panel with cash of JMD $500,000 “for a particular outcome”. Apparently the allegations were just rumours that could not be substantiated, as the jury and the alleged juror implicated, remained unchanged.

Based on court records, the judge finished his summation at 3:42 pm on March 13, 2014. At 5:35 pm the jury returned, with the forewoman telling the court that the jury had not reached a unanimous verdict. However, the jury was sent out again by the judge and at 6:08 pm, the 11-member panel returned with a 10-1 majority convicting the appellants of the murder of Williams.