The three-day hearing had been scheduled to end on Friday, but Welch extended it to Monday for more testimony.
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BALTIMORE (AP) The Latest on a hearing for a convicted murderer seeking a new trial in a case that was examined in the podcast “Serial“.
FBI Special Agent Chad Fitzgerald took the stand Friday as the first prosecution witness.
Syed’s defense is also raising questions about cell phone data used to convict him.
The 35-year-old Muslim was given a life sentence for her death in 2000 when he was just 19, but returned to court on Wednesday to argue that he deserves another trial and a new chance at freedom.
Now Syed’s lawyer is working to get his conviction overturned – and Serial host Sarah Koenig will be there every step of the way.
An attorney has told a judge that a witness who could have provided an alibi for the convicted killer at the center of the popular “Serial” podcast would have been “critical” in the man’s first trial, had she been contacted by his original defense team.
The failure of Adnan Syed’s attorney to call Asia McClain as an alibi witness crippled his defense, David Irwin said.
McClain Chapman said no one contacted her to provide a possible alibi at his trial.
Asia McClain, Syed’s high school friend, testified Tuesday she did see him during the time he was supposedly committing the murder and disposing of the body in a park.
An employee at the Woodlawn library said the facility had surveillance videos but they were erased each month and by the time Syed was arrested, the data would have been gone, according to NBC.
The investigator, Sean Gordon, said he was able to reach 41 of 83 people on a list put together by the original defense who were listed as alibi witnesses.
The case was highlighted in the “Serial” podcast back in 2014; Syed has been in custody since his arrest back in 1999 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee.
Testifying on the third day of a post-conviction hearing, Irwin said Gutierrez had a professional duty to call Chapman and interview her as a potential alibi witness after they discovered her. Of those, he said, only four said they were contacted by Cristina Gutierrez, Syed’s original lawyer, and none were asked to testify.
Deputy Maryland Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah read aloud the family’s words from the steps of the Baltimore Circuit Court.
In a lengthy cross-examination, however, he appeared momentarily flummoxed when Syed’s attorney showed him records that indicated that a single caller purportedly had managed to travel between Woodlawn, a Baltimore suburb where the murder occurred, and Washington DC which should be an hour away, in less than half that time.
Attorney Justin Brown also entered into evidence an affidavit from Abraham Waranowitz, who worked at AT&T as a radio frequency engineer and testified for the state at Syed’s original trial.
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Syed was granted the hearing in part because of a cover letter that accompanied the cell phone records saying that incoming calls were not to be relied on for location, even though it was precisely such calls that placed Syed at the park where Lee was buried.
