United Kingdom’s Privy Council has rejected Vybz Kartel’s application to introduce fresh evidence into his appeal even as his substantive appeal remains before the court.
On Tuesday, reports first surfaced that the artist’s appeal was denied, but it was later clarified that it was, in fact, Kartel’s application to introduce ‘fresh evidence’ in the appeal that was denied.
The ruling on Tuesday revealed that Vybz Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, had made a subsequent application to the Privy Council on November 12, 2021, where he applied to the court to have fresh evidence in the form of phone evidence garnered by international cyber experts entered to support his substantive appeal.
The substantive appeal was filed on November 20, 2020, where Kartel argued several grounds of facts and law that the evidence against him had been tampered with and that he did not receive a fair trial.
A ruling on the substantive appeal is still pending, contrary to earlier reports that the appeal was denied in its entirety.
A notice of the ruling was released on Tuesday (February 21) said, “Having considered an application for permission to appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Jamaica on April 3 2020 in the matter between [the Appellants] and The King [Respondent] and having considered written submissions from the Appellants and the Respondent we have agreed to report to Your Majesty as our opinion that 1) permission to appeal be refused (in the application dated November 20 2020).”
The ruling added that the additional grounds of appeal advanced by Vybz Kartel also “be refused and also refused on the application for an extension of time and application to rely on fresh evidence.”
The ruling noted that the additional grounds application filed in 2021 “do not support the submission that a serious miscarriage of justice has occurred in this case.”
In the meantime, Jamaica’s Director of Public Prosecution, Paula Llewellyn, shared that Kartel was appealing on “fresh evidence” grounds after hiring cyber experts to examine the cell phones that his team claims were tampered with. The examination was done in the presence of the DPP, which holds state evidence until a trial is over.
The artist is accused of being the mastermind behind a murder plot to kill his associate, promoter Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams.
Vybz Kartel and his co-defendants were found guilty on March 13, 2014, and he was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison while the others faced similar sentences. An appeal court judge reduced his sentence to 32 years and 6 months in 2020 after hearing arguments about evidence tampering in the trial. However, the murder conviction still stands. Kartel’s co-defendants are Shawn ‘Storm’ Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John.
Williams’ body has never been found, but the highly publicized case involved circumstantial evidence that police used to show that Kartel had the motive to kill Williams after two illegal weapons in his possession reportedly went missing. The police also tendered evidence from Kartel’s blackberry phones showing him speaking in codes ordering the death of Williams.
