Buju cocaine video released

Yesterday, what many see as a crucial piece of evidence used to convict reggae superstar Mark Myrie, aka Buju Banton, was finally unsealed.

Released by ABC News, the video shows Myrie tasting what appears to be a pinch of cocaine. The clip which is less than a minute long, shows Myrie looking on as another man cuts open a sealed package. At the end of the clip, Buju is seen taking a lick from his finger then saying, "I like it."

For years, United States officials demanded that the undercover video from Myrie's last meeting with the informant - stay under seal, but ABC News appealed to a federal judge, and the video has now been unsealed.

"This case is a true miscarriage of justice, and it still keeps me up at night. There was NO evidence to support the jury's verdict," Myrie's trial attorney, David Oscar Markus, told ABC News in an email. Prosecutors and a US appeals court disagreed, with the court saying that Myrie "demonstrated familiarity with the drug trade" and deliberately laid the groundwork for a drug deal.

HIS SUPPORTERS

Scheduled to be released from prison later this year, Banton has been incarcerated for nearly a decade on drug trafficking charges.

But despite the release of the video, his supporters still stand by him. Tony Rebel told The Star: "If your finger stink, you can't cut it off ... But if your child does something wrong, and the child being punished, you don't continue punishing the child for that. But I guess America because he's a popular figure they see that did not stop people from loving him. That could be what that is all about. Unfortunately, Buju was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but him already pay the price."

Gussie Clarke believes it is a show of strength from his international adversaries, to demonstrate that they were in the right. "If his sentence has expired, them just a show it fi seh, we never a tell nuh lie. It's not parole where they can deny release. It's just how it is."

Regardless, the local music expert expressed his excitement at the pending release of the artiste. "We'll be glad to see him come out and start his career. Jamaica and the rest of the world is focusing on the positive and not the negative. Them could let him out little earlier," Clarke said.

Chuck Fenda agrees. "I haven't seen this video. But this video being released, I don't think it will have any effect on his career. He has done his time. People generally love Buju. Genuine love from the people of the world is for Buju Banton. He's a great artiste who has done a lot for the music business and Jamaica. He's an icon in the business. From an entertainer to an entertainer, I wanna wish him the best when he comes back to Jamaica. People are waiting on him."

Fenda even offered up some words of encouragement for the reggae icon. "We've all been in situations so you can't persecute somebody. You just brush off yourself and move on. No matter what arises, continue to pray, and you will overcome all of this," he said.