In a notice published last Friday, Justice Marva McDonald Bishop established deadlines for the presentation of legal arguments: May 6th for Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, and his co-accused Shawn 'Storm' Campbell, Kahira Jones, and Andre 'Mad Suss' St John, and May 31st for the prosecution.

The hearing is scheduled to last for five days. Last March, the UK-based Privy Council overturned the murder convictions of the four men and ordered the Court of Appeal to decide whether there should be a new trial. The British court cited serious jury management issues to justify its decision, including continuing the trial with a "contaminated" juror, thereby compromising the fairness of the trial. Kartel and his co-accused, who have already served over 12 years in prison, have consistently denied any involvement in Williams' death.

In a statement last month, Kartel, who received the harshest sentence, expressed confidence that the Court of Appeal, which had previously upheld his conviction, would now "do the right thing."

"Some people have expressed concern to me about a possible retrial, but to those, I say (albeit with my limited knowledge of the law), 'what is there to try again?'" he added.

He continued: "That being said, the most important point for me is that I am an innocent man. So in reality, I am not worried at all because I know I will be acquitted and will return home to my family, with whom I have not been together for over 10 years." During the initial trial, prosecutors relied on telecommunications evidence - including a text message indicating that Williams, whose body was never found, had been "finely chopped" - and the key prosecution witness, Lamar "Wee" Chow, who testified that Williams was killed at Kartel's Havendale, St Andrew, home on August 16, 2011, after being summoned there for missing guns.

Kartel's defense had challenged the admissibility of the telecommunications evidence, arguing that the police obtained it in violation of the Jamaican constitution. They also questioned Chow's credibility and cited his inconsistent account of events, including Chow's letter to a Public Defender, indicating he saw Williams after August 16, 2011, and that the police pressured him to make a contradictory statement.

In a similar case in the Bahamas, Simeon Bain, the so-called "Burger King Killer," spent 13 years in prison before the Privy Council overturned his conviction and recommended that the Court of Appeal decide whether he should be retried.

The Bahamas court later ordered Bain's release, citing the passage of 13 years since the crime, the impracticality of a new trial amid a heavy backlog of cases, and the "anticipated ordeal" that a new trial would represent for Bain, the victim's family, and the public.

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