KINGSTON, Ja­maica —Fans of en­ter­tain­er Vy­bz Kar­tel rev­elled in a par­ty at­mos­phere in down­town Kingston yes­ter­day, af­ter the dance­hall su­per­star and his co-ac­cused were freed of mur­der af­ter 13 years in prison.

The Court of Ap­peal ruled against retry­ing Kar­tel, whose re­al name is Adid­ja Palmer; Shawn ‘Shawn Storm’ Camp­bell; Kahi­ra Jones; and An­dre St John for the Sep­tem­ber 2011 mur­der of their as­so­ciate Clive “Lizard” Williams.

The case had been re­mit­ted back to the ap­peal court by the Privy Coun­cil, which al­so quashed the quar­tet’s ear­li­er mur­der con­vic­tion.

The de­ci­sion was made by a three-judge pan­el, in­clud­ing Jus­tices Mar­va Mc­Don­ald-Bish­op, Paulette Williams and David Fras­er.

The pres­i­dent of the Court of Ap­peal, Jus­tice Mar­va Mc­Don­ald Bish­op, in an­nounc­ing the unan­i­mous de­ci­sion, said de­spite facts of the case show­ing “barefaced de­fi­ance of law and or­der”, the court had to con­sid­er oth­er fac­tors, such as the length of time the men had al­ready been in cus­tody and the psy­cho­log­i­cal and health im­pact on the ap­pel­lants if a new tri­al were to be or­dered.

De­fence lawyers, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Vy­bz Kar­tel, had cit­ed the artiste’s de­clin­ing men­tal and phys­i­cal health, not­ing his Grave’s Dis­ease di­ag­no­sis.

Be­fore the rul­ing, an ab­bre­vi­at­ed sum­ma­ry was pro­vid­ed for the sole pur­pose of as­sist­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic with un­der­stand­ing the mat­ter.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the quar­tet had made an ap­peal to the lo­cal Court of Ap­peal in 2020, but their con­vic­tions were up­held. The ac­cused’s ap­peal was then tak­en to the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil, and on March 14, 2024, their mur­der con­vic­tions were over­turned on the grounds of ju­ror mis­con­duct.

The Privy Coun­cil al­so re­mit­ted the case back to the Ja­maica Court of Ap­peal to de­cide whether there should be a re­tri­al.

Fol­low­ing the rul­ing yes­ter­day, hun­dreds of Kar­tel fans cel­e­brat­ed in the streets while speak­ers blared many of his hit songs.

One woman, who on­ly iden­ti­fied her­self as Tash, said she trav­elled all the way from Lon­don, Eng­land, for the rul­ing, said, “Big up Kar­tel, I am feel­ing great… It’s some­thing big in the UK, we love him over there and we need to see him soon in con­cert.”

Asked whether she feels Kar­tel can re­turn to the heights of dance­hall af­ter 13 years be­hind bars, she said: “He will have even a big­ger im­pact af­ter to­day.”