By: Staff Writer
June 2, 2023
Jailed Dancehall artist, Vybz Kartel AKA “Worl Boss” is battling Graves’ disease behind bars while trying to secure his freedom from the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Jamaica.
FOX 5 NY’s Lisa Evers obtained a sworn medical affidavit, where his private doctor notified authorities that his Graves’ Disease and heart condition were getting worse, and that if he did not get surgery soon, it could be fatal.
In exclusive interviews, his attorney, Isat Buchanan, said inhumane prison conditions are putting his life at risk. Kartel’s son said they will keep praying for the best.
Evers also revealed that the 47-year-old deejay has two heart conditions that are getting worse, and that, without surgery, “he could die.”
“Fighting for his life? Yes. It can be dangerous..we do not want to get a phone call to say because he was under this 24 this 23-hour lockdown and unable to breathe, that he succumbed to his illness,” Buchanan warned.
Kartel’s condition is allegedly exacerbated by a 23-hour prison lockdown placed on the deejay following the recent discovery of cellphones within his cell. Buchanan painted a grim portrait of the conditions under which the deejay is being housed: a bucket for excretory purposes, poor circulation in a hot cell, and no access to water.
“He is in a cell, and if you can picture a brick oven because that’s how those cells are built, the ventilation is next to none,” Buchanan argued.
Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disorder that can cause hyperthyroidism, or overactive thyroid. The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland in the front of your neck. Thyroid hormones control the way your body uses energy, so they affect nearly every organ in your body, even the way your heart beats.
With Graves’ disease, your immune system attacks your thyroid gland, causing it to make more thyroid hormones than your body needs. As a result, many of your body’s functions speed up.
On 29 September 2011, Kartel was arrested by police for cannabis possession. Jamaica’s Major Investigation Taskforce (MIT) later charged him with the murder of Jamaican businessman Barrington Burton, conspiracy and illegal possession of a firearm.
Though Kartel was granted bail for the Burton murder on 23 March 2012, for JMD$3,000,000, he remained in prison in connection with a second murder, of Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams, of Waterford, St Catherine. He was charged, along with two others including Vanessa “Gaza Slim” Saddler, with perverting the course of justice, after Saddler allegedly claimed that Williams had robbed her in order to mislead the police into believing that he was still alive. Kartel’s trial was originally scheduled for 21 January 2013, but had to be postponed due to a lack of jurors, and was rescheduled for 11 July.
On 24 July, a jury found Kartel not guilty of the charge of murder of Barrington Burton. However, Kartel remained in custody pending the second murder case. His trial for the murder of Clive Williams started on 18 November 2013, and on 13 March 2014, he was found guilty by an eleven-member jury (10-1) of the murder of 27-year-old Clive ‘Lizard’ Williams. The 65-day trial was said to have been the longest in Jamaica’s history. On 3 April 2014, Kartel was sentenced to life imprisonment. Justice Lennox Campbell said he would be eligible for parole after serving 35 years.