Judge Orders Release of Adnan Syed as Murder Conviction of 'Serial' Subject Is Vacated

Mar. 15, 2025

Adnan Syed, the subject of the hit true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been released from prison, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend, PEOPLE confirms.

Prosecutors failed to turn over evidence to Syed’s lawyers that could have helped prove that he didn’t kill Lee, Phinn said.

There was also a “substantial and significant probability that the result would have been different,” Phinn said, since new evidence came to light since the trial ended more than two decades earlier.

News of Syed’s release came after prosecutors filed a motion to vacate his murder conviction, arguing that it was riddled with problems.

Prosecutors asked that he receive a new trial, according to motions filed in circuit court.

Since his 2000 conviction, Syed has always maintained his innocence, which was explored in the 2014 podcast, and later anHBO documentary.

For more on Adnan Syed, listen below to our daily podcast PEOPLE Every Day.

Prosecutors said that they will continue their investigation, and “bring a suspect or suspects to justice,” but also are not saying “at this time” that Syed is innocent.

Adnan Syed.Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/TNS via Getty

They also asked for Syed to be released on his own recognizance as the investigation continues.

“We have spent 23 years fighting the state and now the state is saying they got it wrong, maybe, and the state is saying he did not deserve to be convicted,” longtime Syed family friend Rabia Chaudry tells PEOPLE, her voice wavering with emotion. “To not have to fight the state is incredible.”

Hae Min Lee.

Chaudry, an attorney and author, is “cautiously hopeful but also nervous.”

“We have been close so many times,” she says, “and had the rug pulled out from underneath us.”

Syed, of Baltimore, was serving a life sentence after his 2000 conviction for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of his 18-year-old Baltimore high school classmate and ex-girlfriend,Hae Min Lee. At the time of the crime, he was 17.

However, he remained behind bars, and in 2019, Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals,ruled to uphold his convictionand denied him a new trial.

The case received new life when prosecutorsagreed in Marchto conduct new DNA tests on evidence used to convict him.

In Wednesday’s court filing, prosecutors said that two suspects “were known persons at the time of the investigation of the case and not properly ruled out.”

In addition, a document found in the state’s trial file showed that one of the suspects “had a motive to kill the victim” and that “he would make her (Ms. Lee) disappear. He would kill her,” according to court documents.

Chaudry, whowrote a book uncovering new evidencethat she says shows Syed’s innocence, expects that a judge could rule on Wednesday’s filing within days or weeks, but doesn’t know when it will be.

Prosecutors said in the filing they intend to thoroughly reinvestigate the case “to ensure accountability and justice for the victim, Ms. Lee” and that “continued incarceration of the Defendant while the investigation of the case proceeds, considering all of the information above, would be a miscarriage of justice.”

In an interview with PEOPLE in 2015, Syed’s mother, Shamim Rahman, told PEOPLE, “Every day I’m waiting for Adnan to walk through the door and say, ‘Mom, I’m home.’ I just want him to come home.”

source: people.com