Contaminated evidence

RETIRED HIGH Court judge Justice Lennox Campbell gave the green light for “contaminated” exhibits to be included in the Vybz Kartel murder trial, and this triggered a domino effect that was prejudicial to the entertainer and his three co-accused, an attorney has argued.

Among the “contaminated exhibits” used as evidence in the 17-week trial, according to Robert Fletcher, the attorney for Kahiro Jones – one of the three men convicted of murder along with Kartel – were the messages and a video recording lifted from the entertainer’s mobile phone.

“The contamination was acknowledged, accepted, and unexplained,” said Fletcher as he made his case before the Court of Appeal yesterday to have his client’s conviction and prison sentence overturned.

“Once the learned trial judge admitted the exhibits that were contaminated, there was no way he could correct it in his summation [to the jury],” added Fletcher.

His assertion came after Valerie Neita-Robertson, Kartel’s lead attorney, pointed to evidence presented during the trial that the dancehall artiste was being treated at Andrews Memorial Hospital, in St Andrew, at 7:48 p.m. on the day Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams was killed at a house in Havendale, also in St Andrew.

According to Neita-Robertson, this challenges the veracity of cell tower information produced by police experts. Inspector Warren Williams, who heads the Police Cybercrimes Division, testified that cell tower information showed that Kartel’s mobile phone was operating in Havendale at 7:52 p.m.