Adnan Syed, the convicted murderer whose case was explored in the hit podcast Serial, is getting a new trial.
Syed is serving a life sentence plus 30 years for the murder of Hae Min Lee, his onetime high school girlfriend. Syed was 17 when he was convicted in 2000; he has now spent almost half his life behind bars.
His attorney, Justin Brown, tweeted the news this afternoon.
Serial raised a number of questions about Syed’s case, though host Sarah Koenig ultimately did not come to a conclusion about his guilt or innocence.
The podcast documented questionable police practices and evidence in the case. But the new trial was ultimately granted after a judge ruled that Syed’s former attorney gave him “ineffective assistance” for failing to properly cross-examine a state witness about the “reliability of cell-tower location evidence.”