Advocates welcome determination to drop case in opposition to Adnan Syed, who was launched from a US jail final month.
Prosecutors within the US metropolis of Baltimore have dropped a homicide case in opposition to Adnan Syed, who grew to become the topic of the favored podcast collection Serial that forged doubt on his guilt within the 1999 killing of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee.
Emily Witty, a spokeswoman for town of Baltimore’s state’s legal professional’s workplace, stated in an e-mail on Tuesday that the workplace had dropped its case in opposition to Syed.
A choose had overturned Syed’s conviction final month, releasing him from jail and giving prosecutors one month to determine whether or not to resume the case.
“Breaking information: After the newest spherical of DNA testing generated outcomes that, like earlier rounds of testing, excluded Adnan Syed, he has now been formally exonerated!” tweeted Laura Nirider, a co-director of the Heart on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Pritzker Faculty of Regulation, who accompanied Syed out of jail final month.
Breaking information: After the newest spherical of DNA testing generated outcomes that, like earlier rounds of testing, excluded Adnan Syed, he has now been formally exonerated! https://t.co/RgdYCvgHFz
— Laura Nirider (@LauraNirider) October 11, 2022
The act is a last vindication for Syed, now 42 years previous, who spent greater than 20 years in jail for a homicide that he had at all times maintained that he didn’t commit. The podcast collection, launched in 2014, grew to become enormously in style, attracting hundreds of thousands of listeners, and elevating doubts concerning the equity of the trial.
Circuit Decide Melissa Phinn dominated final month that the state had violated its authorized obligation to share proof that might have strengthened Syed’s defence within the case, the place he was accused of strangling Lee, who was buried in a Baltimore park.
Information from a cell phone tower had been used within the case to color an image of Syed’s location even if it was identified to be unreliable. A discover on the information particularly suggested that the billing places for incoming calls “wouldn’t be thought-about dependable data for location”.
Prosecutors have stated {that a} reinvestigation of the case unearthed new proof relating to 2 attainable alternate suspects, one in every of whom had threatened to kill Lee and make her “disappear”, in keeping with a court docket submitting. Each suspects had a historical past of violent crimes in opposition to girls.
Prosecutors stated that the 2 potential suspects had been identified on the time of the unique case, however weren’t correctly dominated out or disclosed to the defence. Syed was launched from jail final month and positioned on dwelling detention with a GPS monitor, a typical apply within the US legal justice system.
