Updated 29 March 2023: Six months after prosecutors in Baltimore dropped all charges against Adnan Syed, a Maryland court has reinstated his conviction for the murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee.

In September 2022, Syed was freed from prison having served 23 years of a life sentence after it was found that prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that would have helped Syed in his trial, including new information about “two alternative suspects” that came to light. His case gained notoriety after it was examined in minute detail by Sarah Koenig on the first season of the hit true crime podcast Serial and in the 2019 HBO docuseries The Case Against Adnan Syed.

While Syed’s initial hearing received little attention, Serial’s 12-part deep dive into the case – which revisited the circumstances surrounding Lee’s death and questioned the legitimacy of the case against Syed – quickly went viral. It has now been downloaded over 300 million times.

Syed had maintained his innocence despite being convicted of murdering Lee, whose body was found in a Baltimore park in 1999.

However, the Appellate Court of Maryland ruled on Tuesday that a lower court had violated the right of Young Lee, the brother of the late Hae Min Lee, to have been notified of and attend a hearing on the state’s motion to vacate Syed’s conviction. In light of this, the court ordered a new hearing on the motion to vacate Syed’s murder conviction in a 2-1 decision.

This new ruling orders “a new, legally compliant and transparent hearing on the motion to vacate, where Mr Lee is given notice of the hearing that is sufficient to allow him to attend in person, evidence supporting the motion to vacate is presented, and the court states its reasons in support of its decision”, meaning that while the conviction has been reinstated, the reinstatement will be temporary until the hearing is repeated.

Despite the decision, Syed’s attorney Erica Suter was adamant that “there is no basis for retraumatising Adnan by returning him to the status of a convicted felon”.

“For the time being, Adnan remains a free man. We remain optimistic that justice will be done. We intend to seek review in Maryland’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Maryland, and will continue to fight until Adnan’s convictions are fully vacated. Ensuring justice for Hae Min Lee does not require injustice for Adnan,” she said in a statement.

Speaking before Syed was released from prison back in September 2022, Lee’s brother told the court that he was “not against the investigation” but felt the family had been blindsided by the prosecutors who had filed the motion. 

“Every day when I think it’s over… or it’s ended, it always comes back. It’s killing me,” Young Lee said. “This is not a podcast for me. This is real life – a never-ending nightmare for 20-plus years.”

Steve Kelly, a victim’s rights lawyer representing the family, added that the Lees were “deeply disappointed” with the way they’d been treated in the lead-up to yesterday’s decision.

“All they wanted was information,” Kelly said. “If the truth is that somebody else killed their daughter, they want to know that more than anyone.”

For more information on Serial and the case against Adnan Syed, you can check out Stylist’s coverage of the investigation.  

Images: Getty