Attorney-at-law, Bert Samuels, says he strongly believes the conviction against dancehall artist Vybz Kartel and his three co-convicts will be overturned.

“We were concerned that the Court of Appeal of Jamaica did not give enough weight to the concern we had concerning the juror who was alleged to have been attempting to  bribe the jury. We felt that once that was exposed, the judge ought to have stopped the case and changed for another jury at another time,” Samuels told Observer Online.

Samuels was reacting to the two-day murder appeal hearing before the UK-based Privy Council.

Samuels said he was optimistic that the Court of Appeal in Jamaica would have agreed with their submissions to set aside the conviction, but that was not to be. He believes that the Privy Council in the UK may be more amenable to their submission regarding jury tampering.

“We see that the judges are taking that complaint into account, and we hope that they will use that complaint to set aside the conviction. If that happens, that is not the end of the matter, they can set it aside and order a new trial. I am of the view that it is more likely that it will interfere with the conviction and I am hoping that they will go further and say no retrial,” Samuels said.

Samuels said the wide dissemination of damning voice notes may make it impossible for Kartel and his co-appellants to get a fair trial in Jamaica.

“It is troubling even when we went to the Court of Appeal and we argued that based on the heavy circulation of the voice notes. At the time of circulation of voice notes, thousands of persons forwarded those voice notes, and I suspect that those voice notes would have been forwarded by multi-thousands (since that time). With that out there, it may be difficult to find 12 persons or seven persons, as the case may be, to say that we will take that out of our mind and give the accused a fair trial,” he said.

Prior to the 2015 amendment to the Jury Act, 12 jurors were required for the trial of a murder, but the Jury (Amendment) Act 2016, makes provisions for majority verdicts to be accepted in cases of non-capital murder, and reduced the number of jurors required to try non-capital murder cases from 12 persons to seven persons.

Samuels stated that they’re 80 per cent confident that the defence will be successful.

“A lot of times the court says where you have served a good part of your sentence , like a third of your sentence, the court will say enough is enough, we’re not going to ask for retrial, I am 80 per cent confident that there will be a retrial,” he said.

Further, based on the extent of the submissions, he’s anticipating a summer judgement. The judgment is publicly announced on a scheduled date, typically 12 weeks after the hearing.

Kartel, 48, has been in jail since September 2011. He must serve 32 years and six months before parole eligibility.

In March 2014, Kartel, whose given name is Adidja Palmer, Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre ‘Mad Suss’ St John were convicted of the murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams in the Kingston Home Circuit Court.

Prosecutors had relied on the sole eyewitness, Lamar “Wee” Chow, who testified that Lizard was murdered at Kartel’s home in Havendale, St Andrew, after he and the deceased were summoned there over missing, unlicensed guns. They also relied on cellphone evidence.

Lizard’s body has never been found.

After the Jamaica Court Of Appeals largely upheld their conviction in 2020, the four men moved to the Privy Council, Jamaica’s highest court.  They have alleged that the crucial cellphone evidence was improperly obtained and that the trial jury was tainted and compromised by attempted bribery and, later, “pressure” from the judge to reach a verdict.