Dancehall Legend Vybz Kartel Freed After Appeals Court Declines To Retry Him On Murder Charges

He originally got his 2014 murder conviction overturned in March 2024.

After getting his 2014 murder conviction overturned in March, recording artist Vybz Kartel is now officially a free man after the Jamaican Court of Appeals declined to retry him.

According to BBC News, Vybz Kartel, real name Adidja Palmer, will not face another trial after being convicted in the killing of Clive “Lizard” Williams in 2014 in Jamaica. The Privy Council in London overturned the ruling in March after learning that a juror was accused of trying to bribe other jurors at the trial. The council concluded that the accused juror should have been kicked off the trial after discovering the attempted bribery of other jurors.

On July 31, the appeal judges in Jamaica determined that the case would not go back to court, setting the freedom of Kartel, who is reportedly in poor health.

Kartel has always maintained his innocence.

Kartel and his co-defendants, Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John, were given life sentences, with the dancehall artist being told he would have to spend a minimum of 35 years in prison.

After initially appealing his sentence in Jamaica courts, he took his case to the Privy Council, where the London court agreed with Kartel, and the judges said it was “fatal to the safety of the convictions which followed” and “an infringement of the [defendants’] fundamental right to a fair hearing.”

On July 31, Jamaica’s Court of Appeal’s Justice Marva McDonald-Bishop stated she and the other judges weighed up the “egregious nature and seriousness of the offense” against the amount of time passed, the lack of access to witnesses and evidence as well as the huge expense of a retrial. Another determining factor was Kartel’s “declining health” and the effects of what a new trial would have had on his physical and mental well-being.

“We conclude that the interests of justice do not require a new trial,” the court said, formally acquitting the recording artist and his co-defendants.

Rolling Stone reported that the men were convicted on March 14, 2014. Prosecutors stated that Lizard was allegedly killed over missing guns and that Kartel allegedly summoned him to his home, where he was allegedly beaten to death. His body was never found. The alleged incident took place in August 2011.