By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Baltimore prosecutors asked a court to vacate the 2000 murder conviction of a man found guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend in a case that has drawn national attention when the podcast “Serial” raised doubts about his guilt, local media reported on Wednesday.
Adnan Syed, now 42, has always maintained his innocence in the 1999 slaying of Hae Min Lee, who was strangled to death and buried in a Baltimore park.
Syed, who was 17 at the time of the killing and has served more than 20 years in prison, will either get a new trial or go free if the court grants the request to vacate the conviction.
Neither Syed’s current lawyers nor a spokesperson for the Baltimore County prosecutor’s office were immediately available for comment.
In a court filing on Wednesday, prosecutors said evidence suggested two other possible suspects in the case may have been involved in the woman’s death, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The court filing was not immediately available from the Baltimore County clerk’s office.
The new motion is the result of a year-long review of the case. State investigators found both new evidence as well as some existing evidence that was never given to the defense.
State Attorney Marilyn Mosby said on Wednesday that investigators found trace levels of male DNA after testing swabs from Lee’s fingernails, shirt and fingernail clippings. Those items were not tested during a separate inquiry in 2018, CBS News reported online.
“After reviewing the evidence and new information about alternative suspects, it is our duty to ensure that justice is done,” Mosby told the Wall Street Journal.
The podcast “Serial”, produced by Chicago public radio station WBEZ, put the case on the national stage in 2014.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
