The dance-hall star well known for innovative, but often violent, X-rated lyrics was judged by 10 out of 11 peers and was found guilty along with three co-defendants who were convicted of an October 2011 killing of Clive “Lizard” Williams. One of the defendants was cleared of all charges.
Prosecutors alleged Williams was beaten to death at Kartel’s home in August 2011, when he went to answer for two missing illegal guns and his body has never been found.
According to reports, police had testified that they had retrieved a text message from Kartel’s phone indicating that Williams was chopped up in a “mincemeat” so fine that his remains would never be found.
Police had blocked off streets and barricaded streets around the supreme court since the previous day in an attempt to prevent any disruption by fans of the entertainer but still shortly before the jury started to deliberate in the afternoon a few hundreds of fans broke through the barricade with pleas to free kartel.
The defense lawyer Tom Tavares-Finson insisted the case against Kartel was “dishonest” and “incompetent,” noting that witness statements and a compact disc with evidence saved on it somehow went missing and conclude that he was going for an appeal.
A male juror was also arrested on Thursday evening on charges of attempting to bribe the jury foreman in an attempt to influence the panel to free the dance hall star. Reports from the authorities confirmed the arrest but declined to shed more light on the incident.
