Vybz Kartel and his co-accused deserve a fair trial!

TO:THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, JUDGE LENNOX CAMPBELL, MEMBERS OF THE JURY, SUPREME COURT, COURT OF APPEAL, PRIVY COUNCIL,DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTION, MR TOM TAVARES-FINSON, MR MIGUEL LORNE, MS TAMPA HARRIS, MR DUEHAR, MR ROGERS, MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND SECURITY, MOST HONORABLE PORTIA SIMPSON-MILLER, THE PUBLIC

A pleasant good day 

I am writing to you in regards to the Vybz Kartel murder trial. Not being in attendance at the trial (supposedly the longest murder trial in Jamaica’s history), I had to rely on media reports and unless much has been “lost in translation”, I do not think that based on the evidence presented a jury could have met for approximately 2 hours to examine the offerings presented in a 65 day trial (judge Lennox Campbell spent all of 6 days to do his summary).

 Clearly jurors had long decided that the “WORLD BOSS” and his co-accused had to be sent away and they were not going to objectively examine the evidence presented. I guess they were exercising their “common sense” as urged by judge Campbell – Jurors are not members of the court, or public opinion they are sitting in the court of law, the Supreme Court to be exact and the evidence presented must be beyond reasonable doubt to result in a conviction.

 The police had also used Mr. Palmer’s phone while it was in their possession, an action which I suspect would have resulted in the collapse of the crown’s case in other jurisdictions.

A particular concern must also be the conduct of the presiding judge. He did not come across as an impartial arbitrator but probably demonstrated bias towards the prosecution. he for example repeatedly refused to include timestamps of audio and video evidence during his summary. I am not a fan of dancehall or a lawyer and i do believe that if you do the crime you should pay the penalty, that’s just it. I will say this though, the Jamaican system is known for its lackadaisical traits and cover up.

They see Mr. Palmer as a young black. Yes, a black ghetto youth with power. But think about it; open up your minds for one moment and let us think as educated people. If you were a business man selling bags, what would you do? Make the bags appealing to what the public is gravitating towards right?  It’s the same with musicians, rappers, djs,r&b singers, pop stars you name it. Don’t blame Mr. Palmer for violence in Jamaica because killing and robberies have been happening long before you and I were born. Mr. Bunting went on national TV and stated that Mr. Palmer is one of Jamaica’s four problems..Question to you Mr. Bunting – has crime decreased for the last two years these men have been behind bars, and do you strongly believe that with Mr. Palmer and his co-accussed in prison that the crime rate will go down?  Because so far it has not. As the minister of national security you are doing a very poor job and instead of blaming Mr. palmer, maybe Mr. bunting you should consider retiring.

Now let’s take a look at the case in a nutshell. The Deputy Commissioner of police stated that he is concerned that the cell phones were being used but not surprised because he is very much aware of the level of corruption in the police force. Now, how can a police officer collect a cell phone as evidence and allow other police officers to use the same cell phone and then after tendered it into evidence and the judge accepted it into evidence? The blood found on the premises where it was said that the alleged murder took place was collected as evidence and matched against Clive William’s uncle. It came back negative and the prosecution’s reply was the reason the blood wasn’t a match was because Mr. Williams was a “jacket”.

A cell site expert from the police force was called upon and he testified that no one cell phone can make a call one second after being registered at the Norman Manley airport and at the Acadia cell sites.

When the question was put to him by the defense as to how that is possible, his reply was he could not answer to that.

He was asked if it’s possible that the chip was cloned and he replied saying it’s a possibility.

Another police expert was called upon by the prosecutor. He testified that metadata is a data about data and the main witness had testified before that he arrived at Havendale 5 or 5:30 but call data record showed his phone making calls in Portmore at that particular time. The police expert was asked by the defense how this is possible. His reply was I don’t know. He also testified that a photograph was taken from a phone allegedly belonging to the accused Mr. Palmer of a dog bite on his foot. Metadata time of the photo was 7:09 pm at that time call data was shown that the main witness

was in route on Red Hills road heading to Havendale, and the main witness had testified that Mr. palmer got bitten while he was running after him. Now could it be that the main witness was there before he was actually there? How is it possible that the main witness was in both places at the same time? When asked upon by the defense how is it possible, his reply was he does not know. Now this said police expert gave evidence that he created a call data report on the 22nd of October 2011, and at that time was the first he was using the phone while he was examining them, but his report showed that he was being accessed on the 3,4,10,11,12,13,14 of October 2011. When asked by the defense who had access to the cell phone during this time since October 22nd 2011 was the first time it was being used by him, he replied saying he could not speak on that.

The inconsistencies of this witness go further but I choose to end it here. Another witness was called by the prosecution. This time it was the head of the Digicel group who was in charge of preparing the call data record that was given to the police to give to the court. He testified that he prepared two (2) cds: js1 and js2. Now the js1 was a copy of the evidence collected and only to be opened in court for court use only. Js2 was the working copy which the police used to create evidence, however when the evidence was presented by the police expert, it was shown from js2 and that CD the head of the Digicel group said he gave it to the police for only working use was not for court presentation.

When asked by the defense how can the court verify that the information on js2 was authentic he replied  saying it could only be proven with the original js1. He also testified that the information on js2 could be copied and modified. The defense then asked the court to present the original js1 CD at which the prosecutor told the defense and the court that the original js1 cd could not be found because it was lost. Seems to me like all the evidence just got up and walked. The handwriting expert was called to testify by the defense team. This expert also works for the prosecution. Now a letter was written by the main witness to the public defender stating that he was being forced by the police to give a statement against the accused men in Mr. Palmer’s trial. He also included in his letter that he had indeed seen Clive Williams alive after august 16.2011. The handwriting expert analyzed the letter by comparing the signature on the letter to over 39 signatures on the main witness statement produced by the prosecution.

The expert indeed said that the letter was signed by the same person. When the prosecution began to cross examine the witness, he told by expert that his examination was incomplete because he didn’t have the original statement of the witness’ handwriting, in which the expert replied he wasn’t given the original statement but instead given photo copies, the defense objected and ask the prosecution for the original. The prosecutor told the court the original was missing.

The prosecution called  a police cell site expert. During his evidence he testified saying he has a photo of the house navigated by Google Earth. When questioned by the defense how he came up with the location he told the court he got coordinates from a photograph from a phone that allegedly to belonged to Mr. palmer. In presenting his findings to the court, the house that Google pointed to was not the same house the alleged murder was said to have taken place but a house that was actually across from it. When asked by the defense how that house came up he replied that he could not  speak to that matter or maybe Google Earth was at fault.

On a next matter, how did the main witness happen to make out that Mr. Williams was lying motionless on the floor with Mr. St John standing over him with a block while he was running for his life all from a cell phone light? Bearing in mind, the house was in complete darkness, how did the main witness run from such a short distance from the house to jump over a 8 foot gate and not sustain any injuries at all? (atalented young man).

A note book containing crucial information to the case just vanished. A video was shown in court, a video showing no faces, just clothes and tattoos. No murder was seen taking place on the video. After it was put out by the media long before the trial started that the police have video evidence of the accused men committing murder.

I have come to realize that people can sound alike..and people sound different over the phone even on a voice note..Take for example the dancehall duo twins of twins when they are in character 90% of the time they do sound like the person they are mimicking. With today’s technology, anything is possible including creating a fake text message or even making a fake phone call. There is an application for that and it works, trust me it does because I have tried it and you cannot tell if it’s real or fake.

The prosecutor called another police expert that stated he was in charge of dealing with the text messages. He presented a colored chart to the court that was created by him showing text messages taken from a cell phone allegedly belonging to Mr. Palmer in a readable form but right before the court he changed the color and format in which  the messages were sent. Please note that he had earlier informed the court that the js2 cd was read only and that nothing could be changed. That same police took the text “program them things for lizzy” and placed it somewhere else and later admitted he doesn’t know how that happened.

It’s no doubt the police force is corrupted. Police even kill their own and say they died in a shoot out. Mr. Palmer is paying the price for voicing his opinion against the corrupted government; he was brave enough to talk and to even write a book about the ills of society. You cannot find a person guilty because you dislike them, or for how they look. His tattoos and bleaching is just an artistic impression and after all it’s his skin.

For anyone to sell anything at all you have to be creative, especially in the entertainment industry where the competition is so fierce. Vybz Kartel and Adidja Palmer are two different individuals .Shawn Storm and Shawn Campbell are two different individuals. Call it spilt personalities if you may. For them it works. Tapping into character to put food on the table.

Do you think corruption is going to stop if someone doesn’t talk about it? Do you think potholes are gonna fill up on their own if someone doesn’t challenge the government? Wake up people. I wish the system would have tried these men for who they are and not from the community in which they are from.

A man must be judged according to the evidence against him and not what was made up for him. This case surely and purely is made up of unfair circumstantial evidence.

In order for there to be a better justice system, the corruption has to be removed. These men deserve a fair trial.

Thank you

Signed KC

Concerned citizen of Jamaica

---

This author prefers to remain anonymous.

If you like this article please consider joining our Forum HERE to help us grow.