Vybz Kartel Reveals His Biggest Priority Following Release From Prison

After 13 years, Vybz Kartel and three co-defendants gained their release from Jamaican prison on July 31. Back in 2014, the court sentenced the dancehall legend to life in prison for the 2011 murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams. Williams was one of Kartel’s associates at the time. Kartel’s trial was the longest in the island’s history, lasting 65 days. Toward the end of the process, the jury suspected that a juror was offering bribes to the other jurors. That contributed to Vybz receiving a guilty verdict, though he always maintained his innocence. This past March, a London appeals court threw out the defendants’ convictions. They stated that allowing the juror accused of bribery to continue serving led to a “miscarriage of justice.” The Jamaican Court of Appeal then decided a retrial wasn’t worth the effort and set the four men free. Besides the passage of time between trials, the court also cited Vybz’s poor health in their explanation. Vybz Kartel suffers from Graves’ disease and an undisclosed heart condition, likely in part from the poor conditions of the prison he served his term in. His doctor gave statements in court saying that his heart was in such bad shape that...