(NewsNation) — A Baltimore judge Monday ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed’s conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee — a case that was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial,” a true-crime series that transfixed listeners and revolutionized the genre.
Syed is home now, but he’s not free. He’s waiting to hear whether or not he’ll be prosecuted again for the murder of Lee. Syed’s defense team investigator Luke Brindle-Khym explained how his client was given a guilty verdict.
“The trial was simply not fair,” Brindle-Khym said Tuesday night during an exclusive interview on NewsNation’s “Banfield.” “In this instance, we had a massive failure to share with the defense evidence that pointed towards alternate suspects.”
The judge found that prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that could have helped Syed and that they found new evidence later on that pointed to other suspects, flawed cellphone data, unreliable witness testimony and a potentially biased detective.
“What’s important here is that the state knows who they are. And the state has known who they are for 23 years,” Brindle-Khym added. “The bombshell in this case was documents within the prosecutors’ own file that laid out, in some detail, reasons why Adnan was not guilty. And in fact, pointed the finger very firmly in a different direction. “
“Undisclosed” podcast host Collin Miller added that Syed wouldn’t be home today if it weren’t for attorney Rabia Chaudry.
“She brought the case to Sarah Koenig. For the ‘Serial’ podcast … she got the HBO series made and she and her fight over these decades is the reason that he’s home.”