Lawyers upset as judge points to BB messages in Vybz Kartel murder trial....spent considerable time examining the testimony of cybercrimes expert Sergeant Patrick Linton, who told the court that the message was taken from a cellular phone ascribed to Kartel.

 BY KARYL WALKER Editor - Crime/Court Desk walkerk@jamaicaobserver.com  Wednesday, March 12, 2014    

JUSTICE Lennox Campbell yesterday drew the ire of defence attorneys when he told jurors that the author of a damning BlackBerry message which told of Clive 'Lizard' Williams being chopped up 'fine fine' and that his remains would never be found, must have known that he would not be seen again.

A supporter of entertainer Vybz Kartel
 poses yesterday with a placard on
King Street across from the Supreme
 Court in downtown Kingston, where
 the high-profile murder trial is
 taking place.
 (PHOTO: GARFIELD ROBINSON)

Justice Campbell, who will be entering his fifth day of summation in the Vybz Kartel murder trial in the Supreme Court today, spent considerable time examining the testimony of cybercrimes expert Sergeant Patrick Linton, who told the court that the message was taken from a cellular phone ascribed to Vybz Kartel.

Justice Campbell said although the defence had challenged the authenticity of text and BlackBerry messages, there was none forthcoming as it related to that particular message and wondered why.

"Based on the language of that text the author must be of the view that that person would never return. If it is that it has been concocted to cast aspersion on them or to get them convicted, it would be that that person would be found intact, even if they were dead and not 'fine fine'. It's final. It speaks to the disposal of Lizard," he said.

The defence has consistently claimed that the police had tampered with the telephone evidence and Linton admitted, under oath, that several phones taken from the accused men were used by police at the Organised Crime Investigative Division for days. The defence has argued that the instruments have been tainted.

But while admitting that fact, Justice Campbell told the jurors that the phones could be likened to a baton in a relay and if the baton fell it could be retrieved and the race could continue.

The important thing, he said, was if the baton was in the same condition at the end it was when the relay started. more