After last month’s announcement from Serial podcast creator Sarah Koenig that mobile phone data used in the trial of Adnan Syed may have been flawed, Syed’s defence team have been granted the ability to submit new evidence for the first time since 2000.
Currently serving a life-sentence for the murder of his former partner Hae Min Lee, Syed was convicted in part due to mobile phone data that placed him in the vicinity of the murder; the expert who vouched for that data recently released an affidavit stating those findings could have been unreliable.
In light of the possibly flawed mobile phone data, the courts released a document yesterday saying “reopening the post-conviction proceedings would be in the interests of justice for all parties.” No date for the hearing has been announced.
The defense team will take this information and run with it, along with an alibi from a friend they say wasn’t considered in the original case. The Serial team are yet to comment outside of a Tweet announcing the document.
Season 1 update: Court will reopen Syed proceedings https://t.co/Z45VTGAjm1
— Serial (@serial) November 6, 2015
Since the podcast shone a light/million-lumen searchlight on the case, an ardent following of believers has grown, calling for the case to get a full retrial. While that’s not yet on the cards, this new move might move millions of listeners nearer to closure on one of the most publicised cases of all time.
