Samuels hits out at DPP for role in failed Vybz Kartel murder trial

By Prince Moore    

 

A strident Bert Samuels has said it would be unfortunate for Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn to seek a retrial in the Vybz Kartel case given her role in having the initial case continued in the Supreme Court.

 

Mr. Samuels, the attorney for Shawn Campbell, said the DPP was the one who encouraged the judge to proceed with the case despite learning that a juror was offering bribes to other jurors to free the entertainer.

 

In Thursday's ruling, Lord Lloyd-Jones of the UK based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council said the trial should not have continued with the tainted juror.

 

He said allowing the juror to continue hearing the case was fatal to the conviction that followed and was an infringement of the appellants' fundamental rights to a fair hearing under the Constitution.

 

Mr. Samuels said the DPP erred when she asked the judge to continue the case, after learning about the bribery allegations involving one of the jurors. 

 

"So if she encouraged something that the Privy Council is saying was wrong to have happened, it seems to me disingenuous that she could ever want to come and say something that I was actively a participant in - that is to abrogate and derogate the rights of the appellants - I don't think that she should in good conscience come to the court to say a retrial," Mr. Samuels argued Thursday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines. 

 

Adidja "Vybz Kartel" Palmer, Shawn Campbell, also known as "Shawn Storm", Kahira Jones and Andre "Mad Suss" St. John have been serving life sentences for the murder of Clive "Lizard" Williams since their initial March 13, 2014 conviction.

 

The men appealed their conviction on the basis that the judge erred in allowing a tainted juror to remain in the pool and hence they were denied a fair trial.

 

The Privy Council on Thursday quashed the convictions of the four men and sent the case back to Jamaica's Court of Appeal for a decision to be made on whether the matter should be retried.

 

Thursday's decision was handed down nearly 10 years to the day Kartel and the three others had been found guilty of murder.