‘Serial’ Case: Prosecutors Agree to DNA Testing Sought by Adnan Syed

Ms. Mosby declined to comment further on the case, which she characterized as a pending investigation.

Erica J. Suter, director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a lawyer for Mr. Syed, commended prosecutors for their willingness to consider new evidence.

“Mr. Syed has been waiting more than two decades for the opportunity to exonerate himself, not just in the court of public opinion, but in the court of law,” Ms. Suter said in a statement. “We applaud the state’s attorney for recognizing the serious concerns in his case, after several months of deliberation and review, and agreeing that DNA testing is needed. We are eager to finally have access to the forensic tools to establish Mr. Syed’s innocence.”

Mr. Syed was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and false imprisonment in the death of Ms. Lee, who had been strangled and whose body was found in a shallow grave in Leakin Park, at Baltimore’s western edge.

At the time, prosecutors claimed that Mr. Syed had become jealous of Ms. Lee, who had started dating someone else. During the trial, a friend of Mr. Syed said that he had heard him confess to the murder and accompanied him to the park to bury Ms. Lee’s body. But another student, who said that she saw Mr. Syed at the library when Ms. Lee disappeared, was not called to testify.

Focusing on whether Mr. Syed received a fair trial, “Serial” made its debut in 2014. The series was downloaded more than 175 million times and won a Peabody Award.

In 2020, The New York Times Company bought Serial Productions, the company behind the podcast, bringing the storytelling giant into The Times’s growing portfolio of digital journalism.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/us/serial-adnan-syed-dna.html