Vybz Kartel Freed After Appeals Court Declines to Retry Murder Charges

A Jamaican court of appeals declined Wednesday to retry Vybz Kartel after the dancehall star’s 2014 murder conviction was overturned earlier this year, making Kartel a free man after a decade in prison.

In March, the United Kingdom-based Privy Council overturned the conviction against Kartel — who in 2014 was found guilty in the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams — finding evidence of juror misconduct in Kartel’s initial trial.

However, the Privy Council left it to a three-person court of appeals in Jamaica to ultimately decide whether to retry the murder case against Kartel and his co-defendants, or let them all free. On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal opted for the latter, writing in the decision, “The interests of justice do not require a new trial to be ordered,” the Jamaica Observer reports.