"Serial" subject Adnan Syed granted appeal by state of MD

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A Maryland court has agreed to allow an appeal in the case of Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend when he was a teenager. The court’s decision could allow new evidence to be introduced in the case.

Syed’s case was popularized by the smash hit podcast “Serial,” created by journalists from the “This American Life” public radio broadcast. Since the podcast ended in December, Syed’s case and his efforts to contest his conviction have continued on.

The decision by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which was filed Friday, allows Syed’s lawyers to move forward with the appeals process. It overturns a Baltimore circuit court’s decision in January to deny Syed’s motion to appeal his conviction on the grounds that his attorney at the time, Christina Gutierrez, had been ineffective.

Now new evidence could be brought to the surface, thanks in part to the popularity of the radio show.

A former classmate named Asia McClain says she can provide an alibi for Syed at the time of the 1999 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. McClain, who did not testify at Syed’s 2000 trial, has said that she would be willing to testify in the case if subpoenaed.

McClain claims in letters that she wrote to Syed in 1999 while he was jailed, and in a new affidavit filed in January, that she remembered speaking to Syed at the public library next to their high school at the time prosecutors said Lee was being slain. After McClain’s affidavit came to light, Syed’s lawyers filed a supplement to their original appeal, requesting that they be allowed to call McClain as a witness.

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