Adnan Syed: Prosecutors Drop Homicide Prices Towards Baltimore Man

Prosecutors have formally dropped the homicide cost in opposition to Adnan Syed, the Baltimore man who served 23 years in jail earlier than being launched final month.

The choice by the Baltimore state’s lawyer’s workplace to drop the case in opposition to Syed, who was the main focus of the viral “Serial” podcast again in 2014, got here three weeks after a decide vacated his homicide conviction. The court docket discovered that prosecutors failed to show over proof that might have helped Syed at trial — particularly, proof that two different suspects could have been concerned in committing the crime.

On Sept. 14, prosecutors filed a movement to have the court docket vacate the 2000 homicide conviction of Syed, who had been discovered responsible of the homicide of his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. The prosecutors stated “the state not has confidence within the integrity of the conviction” and beneficial he be launched from jail.

Serial Productions, which is now owned by the New York Occasions, had launched an up to date episode with Sarah Koenig, who led the unique “Serial” podcast investigation.

“Serial” launched in 2014 as a derivative of NPR’s “This American Life” and have become an in a single day podcasting hit. Within the first season, Koenig investigated Syed’s first-degree homicide conviction for the 1999 strangulation demise of Lee in Baltimore. “Serial” raised questions in regards to the proof in opposition to him, together with an account of Asia McClain, who claimed she noticed Syed at a public library in the course of the time of Lee’s homicide.

Syed’s case additionally was the topic of a four-part HBO docuseries launched in 2019 by director Amy Berg referred to as “The Case Towards Adnan Syed,” which additionally questioned his guilt. The filmmaker employed personal investigators and reached out to new allies following the discharge of the “Serial” podcast.

In March 2019, Maryland’s highest court docket denied Syed a retrial and he appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, which declined to listen to his attraction.

Pictured above: Adnan Syed leaves the courthouse after being launched from jail Sept. 19, 2022, in Baltimore