Have you noticed that incarcerated dancehall star Vybz Kartel’s presence has been missing from IG for the past month? Well, here’s a possible reason.

According to his lawyer Isat Buchanan, he has been transferred from the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre to the Horizon Remand Centre in Kingston.

Buchanan made the revelation to Observer Online in an interview.

“Kartel has been moved from Spanish Town to Horizon Remand,” Buchanan said.

There has been speculation that the incarcerated entertainer, whose given name is Adidja Palmer, had been transferred as part of the government’s plans to move high-value criminals to the 24 newly constructed cells at Horizon Remand to curtail access to their cellphones.

Sabbatical from Instagram

One source told the outlet that “Kartel is in a cell where the soldiers are stationed right there in front of him”.

The revelation comes against the background of widespread speculation among dancehall fans who have been wondering why Kartel seems to have taken a sabbatical from Instagram as his last post is dated May 20.

In the meantime, Kartel’s legal defence team scored a minor win recently when it secured an order for an expert to examine the entertainer’s cellphone for possible signs of tampering.

“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,” Buchanan said.

The cellphone forms part of ‘Exhibit 14C’ which Kartel’s legal defence team 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.

However, there is no timeline for when this analysis will be submitted to the court.

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 Kartel murder trial, were leaked to the public years ago after they were played for jurors in the Home Circuit Court.