At the heart of the podcast is the court revitalizing the conviction of the American
After the charges were dropped, an appeals court on Tuesday reinstated the conviction of an American who had served 23 years in prison, in which he maintains his innocence.
Adnan Syed’s family friend Rabia Chaudhary fought for his release.
Getty Images via AFP
Adnan Syed, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2000 for murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in Baltimore on the east coast of the US, was paroled in September 2022. His story was at the center of a globally successful podcast. Cont.
The Baltimore prosecutor explained that he had doubts about the verdict establishing his guilt since the discovery of “two alternative suspects” and finally dropped all charges against Adnan Syed a month later.
But an appeals court in the state of Maryland ruled that there was a procedural defect and that the rights of Young Lee, the victim’s brother, who lives in California, were not respected. According to this Court, he would not have had time to appear in person at the trial. As a result, the Court of Appeal overturned the trial court’s decision to drop the charges against Adnan Syed, thereby restoring “his original conviction and sentence.”
The court ordered a new trial to allow Young Lee to appear and required him to “present evidence to support a request to drop the charges,” according to a court document. The parties have 60 days to respond to this decision.
Police arrested Adnan Syed in February 1999 after finding the half-buried body of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee in the Baltimore woods. A year later he was sentenced to life imprisonment. According to prosecutors, he did not support the fact that she left him for another and strangled him. He has always maintained his innocence, claiming he was the victim of anti-Muslim prejudice.
In 2014, a group of journalists conducted a counter-investigation, told in twelve episodes in the first season of “Serial”. Pioneering the era of podcasts, this radio soap opera has been downloaded more than 300 million times, according to its producers. It also inspired an HBO documentary.
AFP
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