Podcast host Sarah Koenig was also in court to hear Syed’s lawyers argue for new evidence to be considered.
Syed in 1999.
The Law Offices of C. Justin Brown / Via cjbrownlaw.com
Adnan Syed, whose murder conviction in 2000 was explored in the wildly popular Serial podcast, returned to court on Wednesday in Maryland to argue that he deserves a new trial.
The appearance at the Baltimore City Circuit Court is the culmination of years of legal petitions by Syed's lawyers and supporters for what is known as "post-conviction relief."
The three-day hearing is expected to center around claims from the defense team that Syed's original trial attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, provided "ineffective assistance of counsel" by not contacting Asia McClain, a potential alibi witness who claimed to have seen Syed in a local library at the time prosecutors said he killed his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999.
McClain signed an affidavit on Jan. 13, 2015, and Syed's lawyers told the court Wednesday they were prepared to call her to testify.
The defense team also wants to introduce new evidence to challenge the incoming phone call records that were used in the original trial to place Syed at the scene of the crime. A fax cover sheet from AT&T that was not included as evidence at the trial contained the disclaimer that "outgoing calls only are reliable for location status. Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information." Syed has argued this non-inclusion amounts to either prosecutorial misconduct or ineffective counsel by Gutierrez .
Making his first public appearance since he became internationally famous in the This American Life spin-off podcast, Syed arrived in court in shackles and a prison uniform, looking very different from the smiling high school senior he was in photos circulated by the podcast. He sported a kuffi, which is a cap worn by some Muslim men, and has also grown a long beard during his time in prison.
Also in court was Sarah Koenig, who spent months digging into the case for Serial, which became the most downloaded podcast in history, generating legions of obsessive fans around the world.
SOURCE: BuzzFeed
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