Adnan Syed, who was made famous by the true crime podcast Serial, was back in court today to ask for a new trial. He’s been serving a life sentence in prison since 2000 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee.
As BuzzFeed reports, Syed appeared in front of the Baltimore City Circuit Court on Wednesday to argue that he is entitled to a new trial, given his original lawyer Cristina Gutierrez’s failure to call an important alibi witness, Asia McClain, to testify. Syed’s legal team said that she is prepared to testify during the three-day post conviction hearing.
Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown argued and called witnesses to corroborate the defense’s claim that Gutierrez failed to call McClain to the stand “because of health issues that affected the attorney’s professional judgment.”
Brown also planned to challenge incoming call data that was used to place Syed at the crime scene, arguing that AT&T had provided a disclaimer about such data being unreliable. Syed’s lawyers argued that neither the prosecution nor the defense included this disclaimer with the evidence.
Serial creator Sarah Koenig was in court to hear the new arguments. The Maryland Deputy Attorney General represented the state and said that the evidence used to convict Syed was “simply overwhelming.”
(via Buzzfeed)