Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says it was she who in­flu­enced the Min­is­ter of De­fence’s de­ci­sion to re­strict Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Vy­bz Kar­tel’s in­ter­ac­tion with school chil­dren and the me­dia when he comes to this coun­try in prepa­ra­tion for his May 31 con­cert.

Af­ter news broke that Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge planned to block Kar­tel (re­al name Adid­ja Palmer) from me­dia ap­pear­ances, a meet and greet, and a vis­it to a school or youth cen­tre, the Gov­ern­ment was asked for the ra­tio­nale be­hind the de­ci­sion at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing.

The Prime Min­is­ter said that while Kar­tel has per­son­al rights, there are no ab­solute free­doms, and she must fac­tor in the rights of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“And if you walk around the coun­try to­day, then yes, ex­press your­self but not at the risk of our chil­dren. And that is one of the re­stric­tions, I said no, I would not let him talk to our chil­dren and do TV shows. So, it’s bal­anc­ing, not an ab­solute right, there is no ab­solute free­dom,” she told mem­bers of the me­dia.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter Sturge was asked if he was fear­ful of any po­ten­tial back­lash from Ja­maica.

“We are not fear­ful of any back­lash, that is the first thing. Sev­er­al of our neigh­bours have the same leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sions which their re­spec­tive min­is­ters have ex­er­cised in some in­stances to refuse en­try to some Trinida­di­an artistes. So, there is no back­lash be­cause it’s a dis­cre­tion they can ex­er­cise,” Sturge ex­plained.

In De­cem­ber 2024, Trini­bad artistes Richard An­tho­ny Ro­mano, known as DJ Punz, Loren­zo J A Homer and Jasse David Aguillera were banned from per­form­ing in St Kitts and Nevis.

Min­is­ter Sturge was told dur­ing the press brief­ing that Kar­tel would ar­gue that he is a re­formed man af­ter be­ing freed of mur­der in 2024 for the mur­der of Clive “Lizard” Williams. But Min­is­ter Sturge said Kar­tel has his own agen­da and his free­dom was not based on the mer­it of the ev­i­dence that speaks to his in­no­cence.

“One of the things one has to take in­to ac­count is this, and I am mind­ful of the fact that he is say­ing he wants to speak with the youth to have them stay away from a life of crime. But his con­vic­tion was not over­turned on mer­its, it was over­turned on the ba­sis of ju­ror mis­con­duct. So, the cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the ev­i­dence against him in the tri­al was not un­der­mined and the Ja­maican Court of Ap­peal, who de­cid­ed not to or­der a re­tri­al, did so on pub­lic pol­i­cy con­sid­er­a­tions and their de­ci­sion in no way af­fect­ed the cred­it­wor­thi­ness of the ev­i­dence at tri­al,” Sturge posit­ed.

He clar­i­fied that no of­fi­cial de­ci­sion has been made as he still has to meet with the TTPS’ Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), and he still has to re­ceive fur­ther le­gal opin­ion on the mat­ter.

“But what we must do is not give the im­pres­sion that we are giv­ing le­git­i­ma­cy to some­one who on­ly re­cent­ly was re­leased from death row for mur­der,” he added.

Ear­li­er in the press brief­ing, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie de­fend­ed Sturge’s de­ci­sion.

“The min­is­ter has ex­er­cised his pow­ers un­der the statute, that’s it. I looked at the state­ment he put out, and I was com­fort­able with it.”

When con­tact­ed, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment, the pro­mot­ers of One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, where Palmer is sched­uled to per­form, de­clined com­ment, stat­ing that they had not re­ceived any of­fi­cial doc­u­ment from the min­istry. An­gos­tu­ra Ltd, which pro­duces and dis­trib­utes Palmer’s Straight-Vibes Col­lec­tion of Rums, al­so de­clined com­ment.