Killer made famous in 'Serial' podcast granted new trial

The teenager who became internationally famous for the murder of his teenage sweetheart will be granted a new trial after the popular podcast Serial cast doubt on his guilt.

Adnan Syed was convicted in 2000 of killing Hae Min Lee and burying her body in a shallow grave in a Baltimore park in January 1999.

He was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison on murder and kidnapping charges.

The now 37-year-old remains behind bars and is serving a life sentence.

Syed always maintained his innocence but it wasn’t until the podcast - which shattered records - was released that international attention was reignited on the case.

Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown, said he is pleased by the 105-page ruling that found his clients right to effective legal representation was “violated” during the first trial.

“If the state is so confident in their case, and if they’re so confident that Syed is guilty, they should just try the case. We’re ready to try the case,” Brown said.

A lower court judge vacated Syed’s conviction in 2016, citing his attorney’s failure to cross-examine a key witness.
Prosecutors appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the state’s intermediate appeals court.

In a 2-1 ruling, the three-judge appeals court panel agreed with Syed’s current lawyer that his trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate a potential alibi witness who said she saw Syed at a public library at the time the state claimed Syed killed Hae.

Her account never made it in to the case.

The panel said in its written decision that if testimony from Asia McClain had been presented to the jury, it would have “directly contradicted the State’s theory of when Syed had the opportunity and did murder Hae” and could have created reasonable doubt in at least one juror’s mind and led to a different outcome.

It was not immediately clear if prosecutors plan to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

Mr Brown said he was confident Syed would be found not guilty in a retrial.