Popular Jamaican dancehall artist Vybz Kartel's conviction for the murder of an associate more than a decade ago has been overturned over alleged bribe attempts on the trial jury.
The London court made the ruling on Thursday saying attempts to bribe the trial jury meant the conviction was unsafe.
Kartel has been in jail in Jamaica since 2011 over the disappearance of his associate Clive “lizard” Williams, whose body have never been found.
Kartel and three others were convicted in 2014 in a 64 day trial in Kingston, Jamaica and was sentenced to a life imprisonment with a minimum of 35 years which were later reduced to 32 and a half.
In February 2024, Kartel made an appeal at the privacy council in London where his lawyers argued that the trial judge dealt with allegation in the wrong manner, claiming that one juror offered 500000 Jamaican dollars to fellow jurors to return not guilty verdicts.
Judge David Lloyd-jones said that the trial judge’s decision to allow the alleged juror to offer bribes was “fatal to the safety of the conviction.”
The Privy Council sent the case back to the Court of Appeal in Jamaica to decide whether Kartel and his co-defendants should stand trial again.
Vybz Kartel wins appeal over murder conviction