‘Serial’ suspect Adnan Syed released
(CNN) - A judge vacated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed who was serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of his high school ex-girlfriend.
The case gained attention from the podcast 'serial' and later an HBO series but Syed's troubles may not be over just yet, CNN's Alexandra Field reports.
Free from prison - after 23 years behind bars.
A crowd swarmed Adnan Syed outside a Baltimore circuit court moments after a judge vacated the murder conviction against him.
Syed didn't stop to speak whisked away in a car and ordered to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.
Until the state decides whether to pursue a new trial against him, or drop all charges in the death of Hae Min Lee, his ex girlfriend, a high school student strangled to death in 1999.
Her body was discovered weeks later.
“We are not yet declaring, not yet declaring Adnan Syed is innocent but we are declaring that in the interest of fairness and justice, he is entitled to a new trial," State's Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby said.
Syed has maintained his innocence since he was convicted in 2000.
Defense attorneys have repeatedly tried to have him exonerated.
A popular HBO series raised new questions about the case against Adnan Syed in 2019.
"Young lovers from different worlds."
But it was the hit podcast serial that brought the case and the possibility there had been a miscarriage of justice to national attention in 2014.
Lee's brother, Yung Lee telling the courtroom "this isn't a podcast for me this is real life," and tearfully adding "whenever I think it's over, it's ended, it always comes back."
But the judge ruled in favor of the motion filed by prosecutors who had asked for Syed's immediate release following a year long reinvestigation into the case against him, that turned up a slew of failures, cited in a 21 page court document.
Among them the unreliability of cell phone data used in the original trial, advances in DNA testing and most critically, newly developed information about two alternative suspects and the state's failure to disclose critical information about those suspects with the defense at the time of the trial.
“Our investigation uncovered that one of the suspects threatened Ms. Lee, saying he would make her disappear. He would kill her. We also received information that provided motive for that same alternative suspect," State's Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby said.
A final decision on whether to actually proceed with a new trial, will likely hinge, according to prosecutors, on the results of testing of some items recovered from the crime scene, a technology that didn't exist at the time of the crime.
Still for throngs of Syed's supporters this is the first victory, more than two decades in the making.
For the family of Hae Min Lee, the start of another search for answers in the death of their beloved.
“This family is interested in the pursuit of justice. They want to know more than anybody who it was that killed Hae Min Lee," Lee Family Attorney Steve Kelly said.
Members of the Lee family are now considering their options for an appeal.
