The family of a murder victim at the center of the wildly popular true crime podcast called “Serial” has filed a motion to appeal Adnan Syed’s recent release from prison after 23 years behind bars.
Syed, now 41, was convicted in 2000 of murdering high school student Hae Min Lee, 18, in 1999, but Syed has maintained his innocence since being sentenced to life at age 19 for Lee’s murder.
The appeal will be centered around any potential violations in Maryland’s victim’s rights statutes regarding a Sept. 19 hearing for Syed that Lee’s family says they were not able to attend. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals will review any violations in the law connected to that hearing, Lee family attorney Steve Kelly told FoxNews.com.
“Maryland provides crime victims with basic rights for cases like this, and those rights were not respected. The Lee family was not given adequate notice,” Kelly said.
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Kelly previously asked the Baltimore judge assigned to Syed’s case, Judge Melissa Phinn, to postpone the proceedings for a week to give Lee’s brother, Young Lee, time to travel to Baltimore from California and be present in person — a motion denied by Phinn.
“The hearing — they were given less than one business day to get here from California,” Kelly said. “They were not really told they had the rights to participate in the hearing. They don’t feel like they have enough information from the motion itself, from the arguments that were made in court.”
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Young Lee did give an emotional statement over the phone during the hearing, telling the judge he was not opposed to Syed’s release because he has faith in the criminal justice system and the court — but he said the motion to vacate “blindsided” him and left him shocked.
“I am not against his release,” he said. “I was kind of blindsided. I always thought that [the] state was on my side, but out of nowhere I hear that there is a motion to vacate judgment, and I thought honestly, I felt betrayed.”
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“This is not a podcast for me, it’s just real life,” he continued. “Never ending, after 20-plus years … I ask, judge, that you make the right decision. That’s all, your honor.”
The district attorney’s office said on Sept. 19 that a year-long review of the case uncovered new evidence that includes different potential suspects, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier.
“The state no longer has confidence in the integrity of the conviction,” Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Assistant State’s Attorney Becky Feldman wrote in a motion to vacate obtained by FOX 5 DC.
Syed’s case breathed new life in 2014 when he became the face of the record-breaking “Serial” podcast with host Sarah Koenig, who released a new episode after Syed’s release less than two weeks ago.
The podcast raised doubts about Syed’s conviction and became the most downloaded podcast of all time — and the investigation into his claims of innocence led to a hearing in which his attorneys challenged the evidence against him.
Fox News’ Stephanie Pagones and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
