Adnan Syed (centre right) leaves court after a hearing on September 19, 2022 in Baltimore. Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the Initiative. Justice and the School Prison.
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File
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Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File
Adnan Syed (centre right) leaves court after a hearing on September 19, 2022 in Baltimore. Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the Initiative. Justice and the School Prison.
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Adnan Syed, who was released from Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true crime podcast “Serial,” was hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university’s Prison and Justice Initiative, the university said.
Syed began work this month on an initiative to advocate for others in the criminal justice system, the university tweeted Wednesday.
In her new role, Syed will assist Georgetown’s “Making an Exoneree” class, in which students re-investigate decades-long wrongful convictions, creating short documentaries about the cases. sentences and work to help get innocent people out of prisons, universities Written in an online announcement.
“PJI’s team and program have a lot to learn from Adnan’s experience, insights, and commitment to serving incarcerated and returning citizens,” the organization wrote on Twitter.
Syed was one of 25 students detained on Georgetown’s inaugural Bachelor of Liberal Arts program at the Patuxent Institute in Jessup, Maryland, in the year before his release, the university said.
Syed said in the university’s announcement: “From being in prison to being a Georgetown student and then actually being on campus on my way to work for Georgetown at the Jail and Justice Initiative, that’s it. a moment of fulfillment,” Syed said in the university’s announcement. “PJI changed my life. It changed my family’s life. Hopefully I can have the same impact on others.”
Syed, 41, hopes to continue her education in Georgetown and eventually into law school.
After serving 23 years in prison, he walked out of a Baltimore courthouse in September after a judge quashed his conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee, Syed’s ex-girlfriend.
Judge Melissa Phinn of the Baltimore Circuit Court ordered his release at the behest of prosecutors, who said they recently discovered new evidence.
Prosecutors said a re-investigation of the case had revealed evidence of the possible involvement of the two surrogate suspects. The state attorney general’s office said the two suspects may have been involved individually or together.
The suspects were known at the time of the initial investigation and were neither reasonably excluded nor disclosed to the defense, prosecutors said.
The Baltimore State Attorney’s Office Marilyn Mosby also cited the new results from a DNA test conducted using more modern techniques than when the evidence in the case was first examined. Prosecutors said the recent trial excluded Syed from the list of suspects.
Syed has always maintained his innocence. His case gained the attention of millions in 2014 when the first season of “Serial” focused on Lee’s murder and raised doubts about some of the evidence that prosecutors used. use. The show broke streaming recordings and podcast downloads.
