Kartel on cops’ radar

The bombshell testimony that Vybz Kartel had ordered murder hits on three persons from behind bars may have already placed the notorious entertainer on the police’s radar for investigation before it was made public, a senior police officer has signalled.

But it is unclear whether the declarations may figure in consideration of future prosecution of Kartel for other crimes.

Head of the Criminal Investigations Branch (CIB), Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Clinton Laing, said that the police would naturally have been following up on any such statement that a witness makes in court.

The prosecution’s second witness in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial made the revelation in the Home Circuit Court last week.

In a Gleaner interview, Laing said that if a witness gave such testimony, it was likely that he or she would have given that in a statement before and an investigation was being carried out.

“What is reported is that no names were called – that is what was reported, that is why I am saying it is likely that the investigators are already aware,” he added.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn declined comment on the matter.

However, attorney-at-law Isat Buchanan, who is seeking to have Kartel’s murder conviction overturned at the United Kingdom Privy Council, said his client had not given him any instruction in relation to the claim made by the prosecution’s second witness in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial.

Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, was convicted along with fellow entertainer Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre St John, for the August 16, 2011, murder of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams in Havendale, St Andrew.

However, Buchanan is of the view that the witness’ testimony in the Clansman-One Don Gang trial was not likely to have any bearing on Kartel.

“Nothing turns on that. We have what is known as snitch culture. People have a right to say anything that will get them the least amount of time,” Buchanan said, a concern that has been pressed home by the defendants’ lawyers at the Home Circuit Court.

Buchanan said that under the plea agreement law, “witnesses will do whatever they need to as a means to get their sentence reduced”.

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, Senator Matthew Samuda, said that he would not comment on the specific claims made against Kartel during the current gang trial.

However, Samuda said he was standing by earlier pronouncements he and portfolio Minister Dr Horace Chang had made that incarcerated gangsters had been calling murder hits on persons from behind bars.

“We don’t need any vindication of validation of what we have said. We are sure that this is, indeed, the case that there are persons behind bars who would do everything in their power to continue to run their criminal enterprise, which includes maiming and murdering of Jamaicans,” Samuda said in a Gleaner interview late last week.

INVESTIGATIONS ONGOING

Asked whether the police had been able to press charges against incarcerated persons who gave instructions to their cronies outside to commit crimes, Samuda said: “I can’t say historically that we haven’t, but I can say investigations are ongoing for persons we know would have triggered criminal acts externally from inside prisons.

“I don’t know historically how many have been charged in the facilities but I know of ongoing investigations,” he maintained.

Kartel has apparently beaten correctional oversight to produce dozens of dancehall recordings during his decade in prison.

In the most high-profile breach, United States television station FOX-5 aired a two-part interview with the incarcerated Kartel.

Samuda revealed last Thursday that a multi-agency probe was unable to ascertain when the interview was done.

“We can’t say on which device. We continue to monitor the space and those who would have had interaction with him,” he said.

But in a Gleaner interview in August, Kartel’s attorney, Buchanan, said that the entertainer did the jailhouse interview while he was at a St Catherine-based correctional facility.

“Those are my instructions. His phone was confiscated, and he was moved to one of those nice $55-million, state-of-the-art facility at Horizon, where they are monitored by the military,” Buchanan told the newspaper in August.

Samuda said that steps were now being made to tackle the issue and to mitigate the impacts that phones and other devices were having in the correctional facilities.

Samuda said that in a matter of weeks, the Government will take legislation to Parliament to make it a criminal offence for persons to provide phones to convicted offenders.

“I just saw what I hope to be the final draft. It will go to the National Security Council and the Cabinet for approval.”

The Cabinet minister noted that he made this commitment sometime mid-last year and was now on the last lap to complete the draft law.

Samuda made it clear that the proposed new law would punish both those who smuggle phones and other contraband into the correctional centres.

He said that the authorities had stepped up searches in correctional facilities, confiscating more than 2,000 items over the last 12 months, up from 1,200 for the corresponding period the year before.

“We are going to throw the bodies at the problem until we have the technology,” Samuda said.

He also said that appropriate scanners, phone jammers, and cameras would be installed across the correctional facilities.