Adnan Syed, whose case was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” departs after a judge overturned Syed's 2000 murder conviction and ordered a new trial during a hearing at the Baltimore City Circuit Courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland U.S., September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
(Reuters) - A Maryland judge on Monday vacated the 2000 murder conviction of Adnan Syed after prosecutors said there were two other possible suspects in the killing of his former girlfriend who were never disclosed to the defense at trial.
The case gained national attention when the podcast "Serial" raised doubts about his guilt. Syed, now 42, has always said he was innocent and did not kill Hae Min Lee, who was 18 when she was strangled and buried in a Baltimore park in 1999.
Judge Melissa Phinn of the Circuit Court in Baltimore ordered Syed to be released from prison and put on home detention and that a new trial be scheduled.
The state's attorney for Baltimore filed a motion to vacate the conviction on Wednesday following a year-long investigation conducted alongside a public defender representing Syed, in which several problems were found with witnesses and evidence from the trial.
Prosecutors told the court that they were not asserting that Syed is innocent but that they no longer had confidence in "the integrity of the conviction," and that justice required that Syed at least be afforded a new trial. They said Syed should be released from prison, where he has spent two decades, while prosecutors complete the investigation and decide whether to seek a new trial.
Prosecutors said that they had found new information about two alternative suspects, whom they have not named. Their identities were known to the original prosecutors but not disclosed to the defense as required by law.
Prosecutors also decided a key witness and the detective who investigated the murder were unreliable. They also found new information that cast doubt on the cellphone data prosecutors relied upon at trial to place Syed at the scene of the murder.
The podcast "Serial," produced by Chicago public radio station WBEZ, drew national attention to the case in 2014.
Marilyn Mosby, the state's attorney for Baltimore, in a statement said that "the person responsible for this heinous crime must be held accountable."
Young Lee, the victim's brother, told the court he was shocked and his family felt betrayed that the prosecutors had reversed course after standing by the conviction for decades.
"It's really tough to go through this again and again and again," he said, his voice breaking and wavering at times. "It's a living nightmare."
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Mark Porter and Lisa Shumaker)
