Adnan Syed will not return to prison, judge the rules

Adnan Syed, who spent more than two decades in prison while fighting accusations that he had killed his former high school girlfriend, will remain free after a judge in Baltimore has reduced his conviction in time.

The decision indeed ended a sensational affair which received generalized attention from 2014, when the first season of the successful Podcast “Serial” raised questions about the conviction of Mr. Syed in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, 18. The Podcast was downloaded more than 100 million times during his first year and his first year for the fight of Mr. Syed.

Judge Jennifer Schiffer of Baltimore City Circuit Court rendered the decision after the Baltimore prosecutors withdrew a request last week to cancel his conviction for murder. Syed was released from prison in 2022 after another judge canceled the conviction and the charges held against him were abandoned later that year. But his conviction was restored, and last year, the highest court in Maryland ordered a overhaul of the hearing which initially released him.

Judge Schiffer, who chaired this hearing on February 26, said in his decision on Thursday that Mr. Syed, 43, “was not a danger to the public” and that “the interests of justice will be better purged by a reduced conviction” of the time purged. Syed will enter a period of five years of “supervised probation”, according to his decision.

The brother and mother of Mrs. Lee had urged the court to maintain the sentence of the perpetuity of Mr. Syed. David Sanford, family lawyer, criticized the decision on Thursday.

“Absolutely nothing changes the fact that Mr. Syed remains found guilty of premeditated murder in the first degree due to overwhelming direct and circumstantial evidence,” he said in a statement. “We hope that one day, Mr. Syed can summon the courage to take responsibility for his crime and express sincere remorse.”