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What you need to know about Adnan Syed's murder conviction

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What you need to know about Adnan Syed's murder conviction
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What you need to know about Adnan Syed's murder conviction

2025-02-27 18:50 Last Updated At:19:01

The legal battle over Adnan Syed 's conviction, scrutinized a decade ago in the hit podcast “Serial,” keeps twisting and turning, even after prosecutors freed him from more than 23 years in prison for a murder he still says he didn't commit.

Baltimore prosecutors resolved one key question this week, dropping an earlier request to clear Syed's record and instead saying his murder conviction will stand.

But they also joined his defense lawyers in asking a judge on Wednesday to reduce his sentence to the time he served. The victim's family objected during the emotional hearing, saying he should serve out his original life sentence.

The judge said she'll rule soon. Meanwhile, here's what you — like the true crime enthusiasts who became obsessed with the genre after listening to the “Serial” podcast in 2014 — need to know.

Syed was 17 when his high school ex-girlfriend and classmate, Hae Min Lee, was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave in 1999. At trial, prosecutors said Syed killed her after becoming inconsolably jealous when the two broke up and she began dating someone else. Syed was convicted of murder and received life in prison, plus 30 years.

Syed's appeal didn't gain traction until the debut season of “Serial” raised doubts about cellphone tower data and other evidence. No eyewitnesses tied him to the crime, and Syed’s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to interview an alibi witness who said she was with Syed at the time Lee was killed. Gutierrez, a high-profile Baltimore-area criminal defense attorney, was disbarred in 2001 when client funds went missing. She died in 2004.

A plethora of legal activity followed in multiple courts, until Baltimore's former top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, moved to vacate the conviction in 2022, allowing Syed to walk free. But Maryland's Supreme Court then reinstated the conviction on procedural grounds, saying Lee's family wasn't given enough advance warning to testify in person.

Mosby's successor, Ivan Bates, announced on the eve of Wednesday's hearing that his office is withdrawing the motion to vacate “to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system.”

Today, it's a given that millions of people are listening to podcasts where popular hosts can be catapulted into celebrity status. But in 2014, the podcast world was still relatively new.

That's when “Serial” dropped. The podcast was the brainchild of longtime radio producer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig, who spent more than a year digging into Syed’s case and built suspense as she reported her findings in hourlong segments.

The podcast debut didn't just cast doubt on Syed's murder conviction; it also upended the true crime genre by portraying Syed as a sympathetic character, rather than taking a defendant's guilt for granted.

There's been a flood of true crime interest since Koenig's smash hit. Experts are conflicted on the rise of online sleuths, who can expose wrongdoing, but also sow distrust of the U.S. criminal justice system.

“This is not a podcast for me. This is real life,” said Hae Min Lee's brother Young Lee, when the conviction was vacated in 2022.

Ultimately, Lee family's appealed to the Maryland Supreme Court, arguing crime victims should be given a larger role in the process. And Young Lee was able to speak in court on Wednesday, urging a judge to return Syed to prison for life.

Judge Jennifer Schiffer indicated that her ruling will take into account Syed's recent accomplishments and the unimaginable suffering of the victim’s family as well as the horrific nature of the crime.

She also offered an apology to Young Lee, telling him: “I am so sorry for what you’ve been through, and all I can say is that your words are not lost on me, and my heart goes out to you.”

FILE - Adnan Syed, right, and his mother Shamim Rahman, follow attorney Erica Sutter, not in the photo, to talk with reporters outside Maryland's Supreme Court in Annapolis, Md., Oct. 5, 2023, following arguments in an appeal by Syed, whose conviction for killing his ex-girlfriend more than 20 years ago was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - Adnan Syed, right, and his mother Shamim Rahman, follow attorney Erica Sutter, not in the photo, to talk with reporters outside Maryland's Supreme Court in Annapolis, Md., Oct. 5, 2023, following arguments in an appeal by Syed, whose conviction for killing his ex-girlfriend more than 20 years ago was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

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At least 9 dead in drone strikes after US and Ukraine sign minerals deal

2025-05-01 23:03 Last Updated At:23:11

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven people dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two people on Thursday, officials said, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.

The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which struck a market in the town of Oleshky, killed seven and wounded more than 20 people, Moscow-appointed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.

"At the time of the attack, there were many people in the market,” Saldo wrote on Telegram. After the first wave of strikes, he said, Ukraine sent further drones to “finish off” any survivors.

Meanwhile, a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa early Thursday killed two people and injured 15 others, Ukrainian emergency services said.

Regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said the barrage struck apartment buildings, private homes, a supermarket and a school.

Videos shared by Kiper on Telegram showed a high-rise building with a severely damaged facade, a shattered storefront and firefighters battling flames.

A drone struck and ignited a fire at a petrol station in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had ignored a U.S. proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire for more than 50 days now.

“There were also our proposals — at the very least, to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the sky, at sea, and on land,” he said. "Russia has responded to all this with new shelling and new assaults.”

The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, former economy minister and current president of the Kyiv School of Economics, said Thursday that despite what he described as “unimaginable pressure” during negotiations on the newly signed minerals deal, Ukraine succeeded in defending its interests.

“This is a huge political and diplomatic win for Ukraine,” Mylovanov wrote on Facebook. “The deal looks fair.”

Mylovanov said the deal includes no requirement for Ukraine to repay previous U.S. aid, nor does it restrict Kyiv to selling only to American buyers. Instead, he said, the deal recognizes contributions from both sides: Ukraine’s in the form of revenues from new projects, and the U.S. potentially through military assistance.

Kyiv residents voiced mixed reactions Thursday morning to the newly signed U.S.-Ukraine agreement, with many saying they had not yet had time to fully understand the deal’s implications.

Among those who spoke to The Associated Press about the deal was Diana Abramova, who attended a rally in Independence Square demanding information on missing Ukrainian soldiers. Her father, Valentyn Stroyvans, went missing in combat last year.

“Any news is hard to take — whether it’s about negotiations or anything else,” Abramova said. “But I still believe and hope that any action will bring us closer to one thing: Ukraine’s victory. Only victory.”

Seventy-four-year-old university lecturer Natalia Vysotska said she wasn’t familiar with the details of the agreement but remained cautiously optimistic.

"I don’t know what the terms are — they may not be favorable for Ukraine at all. Still, if it was signed, our experts must have weighed the pros and cons. I hope it will be beneficial.”

Others shared a more skeptical view. Iryna Vasylevska, a 37-year-old Kyiv resident, expressed frustration and disillusionment with the broader implications of the deal.

She told the AP she feels terrible that “our land is just a bargaining chip for the rest of the world and that we do not have our own full protection, but rely on someone.”

“My vision is that instead of strengthening ourselves, we continue to give it all away. I feel sorry for our land and for our people,” she said.

Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday, a holiday in Russia. But the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump had forced Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its mineral resources.

“Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country," he claimed in a post on Telegram.

Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s commission on sovereignty, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that Zelenskyy had effectively handed Ukraine over to “legally prescribed slavery.”

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Russia's Defense Ministry reported shooting down eight Ukrainian drones overnight on Sunday. The statement was made on Thursday.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Morton reported from London.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire at an apartment house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire at an apartment house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a rescuer helps evacuate residents from their damaged house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a rescuer helps evacuate residents from their damaged house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire at an apartment house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire at an apartment house following Russia's air raid in Odesa, Ukraine, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

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