Charges dropped against Adnan Syed in Hae Min Lee ‘Serial’ podcast case: attorney
Prosecutors dropped all charges Tuesday against Adnan Syed, the subject of the hit crime podcast “Serial” who had been charged in the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
Syed had his sentence vacated and was released from prison on Sept. 19 after more than two decades behind bars.
Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn had given prosecutors 30 days to decide whether to retry Syed or drop the charges.
Their decision not to recharge Syed means he is now a free man. He had been wearing a GPS monitoring device while awaiting the decision.
“After the latest round of DNA testing generated results that, like previous rounds of testing, excluded Adnan Syed, he has now been formally exonerated!” Laura Nirider, a co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law who has been helping Syed, tweeted on Tuesday.
Syed, now 41, was convicted of fatally strangling Lee, then 18. Her body was discovered in a Baltimore park.
His story became the subject of the hit-podcast “Serial,” which examined the case and called Syed’s conviction into question.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s office is expected to release more details about the decision Tuesday.
Mosby said last month that “the State no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction.”
Lee’s family has been outraged by the recent developments in the case.
“This is not a podcast for me. This is real life,” Young Lee, her brother, said, adding his family felt betrayed by prosecutors.
The family’s lawyer Steve Kelly told The Post last week that his clients “want to understand what new evidence has led to that conclusion” and deserve more clarity from the state.
“If Mr. Syed has been wrongfully convicted of Hae Min Lee’s murder, the state of Maryland would need to take responsibility for that extraordinary miscarriage of justice and do everything possible to bring the actual killer to justice,” he said.
With Post wires
