© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A member of safety stands guard contained in the Supreme Courtroom in London, Britain, January 23, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Picture
LONDON (Reuters) – Jamaican dancehall star Vybz Kartel’s conviction for the homicide of an affiliate greater than a decade in the past was quashed on Thursday, with a London court docket ruling that makes an attempt to bribe the trial jury meant the conviction was unsafe.
The musician, whose actual title is Adidja Palmer, is one in every of Jamaica’s hottest artists and has collaborated with performers equivalent to Jay-Z and Rihanna.
Kartel, 48, has been in jail in Jamaica since 2011 over the disappearance of his affiliate Clive “Lizard” Williams, whose physique has by no means been discovered.
After a 64-day trial in Kingston, one of many longest in Jamaican historical past, Kartel and three others have been convicted in 2014. Kartel was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimal of 35 years, later decreased on attraction to 32-and-a-half.
Final month, Kartel and his co-defendants mounted their ultimate potential attraction on the Privy Council in London, the ultimate court docket of attraction in Jamaica and another Commonwealth nations.
Their attorneys argued the trial decide wrongly dealt with allegations that one juror supplied 500,000 Jamaican {dollars} (round $3,200) to fellow jurors to return not responsible verdicts.
The defendants’ appeals have been allowed on Thursday, with Decide David Lloyd-Jones saying the trial decide’s determination to permit the juror alleged to have supplied bribes to proceed on the jury was “fatal to the safety of the convictions”.
The Privy Council despatched the case again to the Courtroom of Enchantment in Jamaica to resolve whether or not Kartel and his co-defendants ought to stand trial once more.