Serial podcast subject Adnan Syed to be released from prison

After 23 years of service, Adnan Syed will soon be a free man.

Syed, whose case was featured on the "Serial" podcast in 2014, was convicted of murdering his high school girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999. A Maryland judge overturned his murder conviction September 19, 2022.

According to the , Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn presided over the ruling after state prosecutors filed a motion last week asking the court to overturn Syed's 2000 murder conviction, citing new information "regarding the possible involvement of two alternate suspects". Syed is serving a life sentence since his conviction.

The judge gave prosecutors 30 days to move to a new trial or drop the case against Syed, who was sentenced to house arrest in the meantime.

The legal parties "also identified significant reliability issues regarding the most critical evidence at trial." Syed is now 41 and has maintained his innocence throughout his life sentence for first degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and forcible confinement. While incarcerated, Syed studied for a bachelor's degree at Georgetown University through its Prison Scholars program.

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A new "Serial" episode will be released tomorrow morning capturing the reversal of the Syed case. Host and executive producer Sarah Koenig was present at the courthouse when Syed was released.

The 12-episode "Serial" podcast season went on to win a Peabody Award and propel Syed's story into the center of a national obsession. Koenig's work has become a landmark in the true crime genre, inspiring the 2019 HBO documentary series "The Case Against Adnan Syed." Both the podcast and the docuseries questioned the evidence held against Syed, with "Serial" ending on an ambiguous note after questioning Syed's possible innocence throughout the season.

Hae Min Lee died of strangulation and her body was found buried in a Baltimore County park in 1999. Syed was 17 at the time of the murder he was charged with. The initial trial ran into many obstacles; his lawyer was disbarred in 2001 following complaints of wrongdoing. In the podcast, Koenig compared putting together the pieces of the Syed case to "trying to draw a map of someone's dream".

In a motion last week, prosecutors said the murder investigation would continue, with investigators using "all available resources to investigate this matter and bring a suspect or suspects to justice," as the 'reported Deadline.

“To be clear, the state is not at this time asserting that the defendant is innocent,” the motion continues, while adding that the prosecution “no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction ".

Hae Min Lee's brother, Young Lee, released a statement amid the overturned verdict. "It's not a podcast for me," Lee said while addressing the court. "This is real life, an endless nightmare for over 20 years."

Baltimore District Attorney Becky Feldman agreed that the inquest "recognized that justice was denied to Ms. Lee and her family by failing to ensure that the correct attacker was brought to justice."

Sarah was at the courthouse when Adnan was released, a new episode is coming tomorrow morning.

— Serial number (@serial)

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