Buju Banton Sentenced to 10 Years

Grammy winning gay hating reggae star Buju Banton was this week starting a ten year sentence after a second jury found him guilty of conspiring to set up a 5 kg cocaine deal with a DEA informant who recorded their conversations on a wire.

Earlier in the case Banton’s lawyer David Marcus said his client had been duped and had been idly boasting without serious intent, telling the court Banton, real name Mark Myrie, had been set up by ‘some evil people trying to take advantage of his trusting and honest character’.

Pleading for mercy his son this week described him as a man who "puts hard work, sweat and tears into his music and that is what (he) puts on the table, it has never been drugs.... The situation is just an example of our mere imperfections as people, being at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

After being sentenced, his lawyer David Oscar Markus said he plans to appeal and read out a statement from Banton to the court.

“The days that lie ahead are filled with despair, but I have courage and grace and I'm hopeful, and that is sufficient to carry me through,” he said, “The man is not dead. Don't call him a ghost".

Following the sentence the Jamaican Observer noted that ‘Banton remains wildly popular in Jamaica’ and reported that numerous local radio stations played his music nonstop in tribute.

A rare dissenting voice appeared in British newspaper the Voice, however, where reader Paul BJ branded him a ‘nasty piece of work’.

“As the Britsh born son of a Jamaican father it sickens me that so many Jamaican people and their British born family members put him on a pedastal that he has no right to be on,” he commented.

“If a White musician spewed out the same poison that comes from Butu (sic) Banton's mouth we'd all be up in arms about it. But because too many see him as one of our own we've turned a blind eye to what a bigot and a thug he really is,” he added. (http://bit.ly/lNEXHS )

Banton first became infamous following the release of his 1988 ragga song Boom Bye Bye" in which he enthusiastically advocated shooting and burning to death gay men.

Though in 2007 he promised to stop performing homophobic songs and making homophobic statements by signing the Reggae Compassionate Act he later denied signing it, to the anger of civil liberties campaigner Peter Tatchell who authored the Act.

“Everyone has a right to be spared threats to kill them. Homophobic songs that contain threats to kill "batty men" (faggots) diminish freedom of speech because they cow LGBT people into silence and invisibility. They are not able to speak freely,” the respected campaigner noted in 2009.

“Not a single LGBT Jamaican is able to go public and be interviewed on TV about their sexuality, because they would identified and be at risk of being killed. Where is their freedom of speech?” he asked.

“In Jamaica, Boom Bye Bye is still hailed as an anti-gay anthem, and is sometimes sung by mobs when they bash LGBT people,” he continued.

“The leader of the Jamaican gay rights movement, Brian Williamson, was brutally murdered in a homophobic attack in 2004. Crowds gathered outside his house, where they rejoiced and sang Boom Bye Bye,” he said. (PeterTatchell.net; http://bit.ly/ghNyaU)
Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff