Vybz Kartel’s Phone To Be Analyzed By Expert For Evidence Of Tampering

Dancehall artist Vybz Kartel’s cellphone, which contained damning text and voice messages linking him to the murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, is currently being analysed by an expert for possible signs of tampering.

The cellphone forms part of ‘Exhibit 14C’ which the legal defence team of Adidja ‘Vybz Kartel’ Palmer has been granted permission to analyse. The order, which was made by Justice Leighton Pusey, gives the defence permission to not only analyse the cell phone but a marked DVD containing a video of the murder, DVD with voice notes, and a compact disc.

“The defence maintains from the beginning that there was tampering, there is no dispute that there was evidence of usage and tampering, and we are hoping for the results,” Isat Buchanan, the attorney-at-law representing Vybz Kartel, told DancehallMag.

There is no timeline for when this analysis will be submitted to the court.

The exhibit is among four evidential materials that the defence team had obtained permission from the Supreme Court to examine via a court order received on May 13. The court also ordered that the items should only be handled by an officer of the court and the approved examiner.

The cellphone and its voice notes have generated much public interest since the conclusion of the trial. Some of the voice notes laced with expletives and death threats, which are believed to be from an accused in the Vybz Kartel murder trial, were leaked to the public years ago after they were played for jurors in the Home Circuit Court.

In some of the voice notes, dated August 14, 2011, the sender said that he was informed that his two “new shoes” were missing and that the guilty party would be killed if the “shoes” were not returned by eight o’clock that evening.

In the meantime, Vybz Kartel and his co-accused continue to wait for the case to go before the Privy Council in the UK, after an official application had been filed in June 2020 on behalf of the entertainer and his three co-convicts. The Privy Council is Jamaica’s final appellate court. There have been no further updates.

“We are just awaiting the date for the appeal,” Isat Buchanan said.

Kartel was ordered to serve 35 years before parole and St John, 30 years. The other two convicts were ordered to serve 20 years before being eligible for parole, but the accused each had two and a half years shaved off their sentences following their appeal.

Attorney-at-law John Clark is representing Jones and St John, while attorney-at-law Bert Samuels is representing Campbell.