Prosecutor wants new trial for ‘Serial’ podcast subject Adnan Syed: report

A state attorney wants to vacate the conviction of “Serial” podcast subject Adnan Syed and retry the case.

The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Syed’s conviction for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore became a national obsession in the first season of Sarah Koenig’s podcast “Serial” in 2014. He was convicted of strangling Lee in 2000 and has been serving a life sentence. Despite a number of appeals, he’s remained behind bars since.

After a yearlong investigation conducted by the state’s attorney for Baltimore City and Syed’s attorneys, a new trial is being requested after new evidence was found, including some that points to two suspects who were never properly ruled out who may have been involved together.

One of the suspects allegedly threatened to kill Lee, but that information was never given to the defense. Lee’s body was also found in a lot behind a house owned by one of the suspect’s relative. That information was also not provided to Syed’s legal team.

Adnan Syed

Further, after Syed’s conviction, one of the suspects assaulted a woman in her car “without provocation or excuse” and the other was convicted of rape and sexual assault.

No public information about the suspects has been released because the investigation is ongoing.

“The State no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction,” the office of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby told the Journal.

Moreover, the state’s attorney asked that Syed be released on his own recognizance as the investigation is ongoing.

“But after reviewing the evidence and the new information about alternative suspects, it is our duty to ensure that justice is done,” Mosby said. “We believe that keeping him detained as we continue to investigate the case with everything that we know now, and when we do not have confidence in results of the first trial, would be unjust.”

Syed has been close to getting a new trial before. In 2018, a special appeals court called for a new trial but their decision was reversed a year later by the state Court of Appeals, Maryland’s supreme court equivalent.

Earlier this year, Syed’s attorneys asked the Baltimore’s Sentencing Review Unit to review the case against their client.