Kartel feared death in prison

Amid the rapidly deteriorating state of his heart and the filthy, inhumane conditions in which he was held for over a decade, Vybz Kartel was fearful that he would die in prison, according to court documents.

The entertainer has been told by his doctor that his heart was now functioning at 37 per cent of its capacity, a 20 per cent decline from last year, he disclosed in an affidavit in his just-concluded case before the Court of Appeal.

“This has caused me to be scared and unsure of my existence,” he said.

He detailed, too, how he was confined to a prison cell with “a lot” of rats, bedbugs and roaches that “plagued” him while he slept and how he had to relieve himself in bottles or single-use plastic bags, widely known locally as ‘scandal bags’.

“It is my fervent hope that I will not die within the precincts of the prison and [that] I will be afforded an opportunity to get the medical intervention that is needed to save my life,” said Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer.

“The last ten years is [sic] worse than hell and any order for a retrial is an extension of my life in hell.”

The affidavit was filed in the Court of Appeal as part of the hearing to determine whether Kartel and three former co-defendants – Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John – should face a second murder trial for the killing of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams in August 2011.

The men – with the exception of Jones who remains incarcerated on an unrelated firearm conviction – walked out of the high-security Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre last Wednesday to throngs of jubilant supporters hours after a panel of three Court of Appeal judges ruled that they should not be retried for Williams’ alleged murder.

At the end of their trial in 2014, the men were found guilty of murder by an 11-member jury and each sentenced to life in prison with the stipulation that they serve between 25 and 35 years before being eligible for parole.

Six years later, the convictions and sentences were affirmed by the Court of Appeal – Jamaica’s second-highest court.

But in March this year the United Kingdom-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) – Jamaica’s highest court – quashed the convictions and sent the case back for the Court of Appeal to decide whether they should face a second trial.

The JCPC noted, in its decision, that it had “considerable sympathy” for the dilemma faced by the presiding judge in the 2014 murder trial after it was disclosed to him that a member of the jury attempted to bribe other members of the panel. But it said that allowing the tainted juror to continue in the case was “fatal to the verdict”.

Kartel had been in custody since September 30, 2011, when the police arrested him at a hotel in St Andrew and his affidavit provides a glimpse of life behind bars for the entertainer also known as ‘Worl Boss’.

Stripped of his dignity

He complained that during his entire incarceration, he was stripped of his dignity by prison authorities, who placed him in a cell that had no bathroom facilities, poor ventilation, and poor lighting.

“[I] had to urinate in a bottle and pass my stool in a scandal bag … and this contributed greatly to the deterioration of my health,” Kartel said, citing the medical opinion from his doctor.

“The cell is a literal oven and each day I felt like I was being burnt alive. The smell of sewage never goes away and there is never a day that I do not feel ill in addition to my medical issues,” he added.

The entertainer said he was placed in a cell with a toilet in June last year, when he was transferred to solitary confinement.

Shawn Storm complained, in his affidavit filed through his attorneys, that he, too, was forced to pass his stool in single-use plastic bags, which is “thrown just on the outside of my cell until the rounds are done and it can be removed”.

“I am provided with a bottle to urinate in. So basically I literally eat in the same place I go to the bathroom,” he said.

According to him, his diet mainly consisted of “vanilla flavoured Lasco and oats because I cannot stomach the food that is served here”.

“The food that is served here I would not feed to even dogs.”

Though he had a mattress he received at the Horizon Adult Remand Centre in 2015, Shawn Storm said he slept on newspapers spread on the floor.

“It travelled with me to where I am [Tower Street] and has not been changed, cleaned or treated despite the fact that it has bugs that we Jamaicans call chinks,” he noted.

According to Kartel, his time in solitary confinement exacerbated his “already fragile health”.

“I am left with my thoughts and every day I am faced with the fact of my mortality and the fear that I might end up dying in prison having never had the opportunity to hold my grandchildren and watch my children continue to grow,” he said, disclosing that he has seven children and two grandchildren.

“I have missed almost 13 years of their lives already.”

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com