Vybz Kartel Received Death Threat From Prison Warder, Says Lawyer

Isat Buchanan, the attorney at law representing Vybz Kartel, has confirmed that his client received a death threat from a prison warder, who is an employee of the Department of Correctional Services.

“I just spoke to him and lodged a report with senior officials of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS). This is a serious allegation and I am confident that the DCS will be doing an internal investigation because they take threats of this nature very seriously,” Buchanan told DancehallMag.

“The officials have a job to do, inmates have to be housed there, so there has to be some balance in terms of the interactions between inmates and prison officials.”

The DCS has not commented on the allegation.

Buchanan said that Kartel was doing as well as could be expected, after his transfer to the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, known as GP, in September.

“He was just moved to a different environment but he is adjusting to that environment and awaiting the results of his appeal,” the lawyer said.

He has been in jail since 2011 for the murder of an associate named Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, along with his co-convicts, fellow artist Shawn Storm, and two others, Kahira Jones and Andre St. John.

Kartel was ordered to serve 35 years before he was eligible for parole, while Storm, Jones, and St John were ordered to serve 25 years minimum.

Since Kartel’s conviction in 2014, the deejay has maintained his innocence.  However, on April 3, 2020, a three-member Jamaican court of appeals panel upheld the conviction. 

The court reduced the four men’s parole serving time by two and a half years each.

On Monday, Kartel announced that his upcoming EP would be titled The Appellant, a nod to his final appeal before the UK Privy Council.