Vybz Kartel Freed After Appeals Court Declines to Retry Murder Charges

A Jamaican court docket of appeals declined Wednesday to retry Vybz Kartel after the dancehall star’s 2014 homicide conviction was overturned earlier this 12 months, making Kartel a free man after a decade in jail.

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

Nonetheless, the Privy Council left it to a three-person court docket of appeals in Jamaica to finally determine whether or not to retry the homicide case in opposition to Kartel and his co-defendants, or let all of them free. On Wednesday, the Court docket of Enchantment opted for the latter, writing within the choice, “The pursuits of justice don’t require a brand new trial to be ordered,” the Jamaica Observer reviews.

The preliminary trial in opposition to Kartel and three co-defendants went on for simply over two months earlier than the 4 males have been convicted on March 14, 2014. Prosecutors argued that Williams was killed over lacking weapons, and that Kartel had lured Williams to his residence 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 cellphone stating that Williams’ physique was turned to “mincemeat.” Williams’ physique was by no means discovered. 

Throughout the homicide trial, one juror was accused of providing bribes to different jurors, and after the court docket grew to become conscious of that allegation, the decide selected to proceed the trial as an alternative of dismissing. Potential juror misconduct grew to become the point of interest of Kartel’s argument in his years-long appeals course of.

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