Adnan Syed, of Serial podcast fame, has been granted a retrial in the murder case that placed him behind bars.
Syed’s lawyer Justin Brown announced the news shortly after the decision. “We won a new trial for Adnan Syed! #FreeAdnan,” Brown said on Twitter.
Syed, 35, is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his former Woodlawn High School classmate Have Min Lee in 2000.
Rabia Chaudry, a friend of Syed’s family, helped kick-start the campaign for his retrial. She tweeted her excitement on Thursday: “I am shaking with joy, shaking! Thank you Judge Welch. Thank you.”
At a post-conviction hearing held in February, his legal team presented testimony of a new alibi witness and an argument that his first defense counsel Maria Cristina Gutierrez was negligent.
She told The Baltimore Sun in 2001 that her practice suffered due to multiple sclerosis, leaving her physically incapable of practicing law. She passed away after suffering a heart attack just three years later.
