Convicted Matthews Lane strongman, Donald 'Zekes' Phipps, has been granted leave by the Appeal Court to take his case before the UK-based Privy Council, THE STAR has learnt.

Information reaching THE STAR is that final leave was granted last Tuesday when his attorneys appeared before the Appeal Court.

Phipps ,who is now serving a life sentence, was convicted in 2006 for the murder of Rodney Farquharson and Dayton Williams in 2005.

It is alleged that both the deceased were beaten, tortured, and shot in Matthews Lane and their bodies burnt in an open lot in downtown Kingston.

In July of last year, the Appeal Court dismissed Phipps' appeal. However, his lawyers have been trying to get his conviction overturned on the grounds that his trial was a violation of his constitutional rights and amounted to an abuse of the processes of the court.

The attorneys claim that the cell site analysis obtained by government prosecutors from one of the country's mobile phone providers was illegally obtained under the Interception of Communications Act of 2002.

The Interception of Communications Act, passed by Parliament in 2002, gives the police the authority to "bug" the phones of persons under investigation.

It is understood that prosecutors used the data to show the jury Phipps' location at the time of the murders.