BALTIMORE (AP) — Despite documented problems with the evidence against him and an earlier request from prosecutors to clear his record, Adnan Syed will remain convicted of murder, according to court papers filed Tuesday night.
The decision from Baltimore prosecutors comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday morning where a judge will consider whether to reduce Syed’s sentence, but this means the conviction itself is no longer in question.
It’s the latest wrinkle in an ongoing legal odyssey that garnered a massive following after being featured in the “Serial” podcast over a decade ago.
Syed’s attorneys recently filed the request for a sentence reduction under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, a relatively new state law that provides a potential pathway to release for people serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were minors. That request is supported by prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced Tuesday that his office is withdrawing a previously filed motion to vacate Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave.
“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Bates said in a statement.
Syed’s attorney Erica Suter issued a statement late Tuesday, criticizing the move and reasserting Syed’s innocence.
“Tonight, the state’s attorney got it wrong,” Suter said. “His decision to withdraw his office’s motion to vacate Adnan’s conviction ignores the injustices on which this conviction was founded. We will continue to fight to clear his name through all legal avenues available to him.”
The original motion to vacate — which was filed by Bates’ predecessor Marilyn Mosby — won Syed his freedom in 2022. But his conviction was reinstated following a procedural challenge from Lee’s family. The Maryland Supreme Court ordered a redo of the conviction vacatur hearing after finding that the family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend in person.
Since the prosecutor’s office changed hands in the meantime, the decision of whether to withdraw the motion fell to Bates.
Instead of asking a judge to again consider Syed’s guilt or innocence, Bates chose a different path. He supported Syed’s motion for a reduced sentence — without addressing the underlying conviction.
Bates said that since his release in 2022, Syed has demonstrated he is a productive member of society whose continued freedom is “in the interest of justice.” He said the case “is precisely what legislators envisioned when they crafted the Juvenile Restoration Act.”
The legislation was passed amid growing consensus that such defendants are especially open to rehabilitation, partly because brain science shows cognitive development continues well beyond the teenage years. Syed was 17 when Lee was killed.
Now 43, he has been working at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative and caring for aging relatives since his release, according to court filings. His father died in October after a long illness.
Bates was facing a Friday deadline to decide on the motion to vacate.
After reviewing the motion filed by his predecessor, Bates concluded that it contained “false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Bates wrote in an executive summary released Tuesday that his decision “does not preclude Mr. Syed from raising any new issues that he believes will support his innocence in the proper post-trial pleadings.”
“However, properly shifting this burden back to Mr. Syed will re-instill the adversarial nature of proceedings that are the hallmark of the truth-seeking function of our criminal justice system,” the summary says.
Attorneys for the victim’s family had argued that prosecutors should address the integrity of Syed’s conviction before the court considered reducing his sentence. Prosecutors “should not be allowed to duck the issue by hiding behind” his motion for a reduced sentence, attorneys wrote in a recent filing.
Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses. The series debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives.
Rife with legal twists and turns, the case has recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.
When prosecutors sought to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022, they cited numerous problems with the case, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented at trial. A judge agreed to vacate the conviction and free Syed. Prosecutors in Mosby’s office later chose not to refile charges after they said DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect.
Even though the appellate courts reinstated his conviction, they allowed Syed to remain free while the case continued.
FILE - Adnan Syed, right, and his mother Shamim Rahman, follow attorney Erica Sutter, not in the photo, to talk with reporters outside Maryland's Supreme Court in Annapolis, Md., Oct. 5, 2023, following arguments in an appeal by Syed, whose conviction for killing his ex-girlfriend more than 20 years ago was chronicled in the hit podcast "Serial." (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Two men who brought explosives to a far-right protest outside New York City's mayoral mansion said they were inspired by the Islamic State extremist group, according to a court complaint.
Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were being held without bail after a court appearance Monday on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction. Their lawyers didn't argue for bail but could do so later.
The homemade devices, which did not explode, were hurled Saturday during raucous counterprotests against an anti-Islam demonstration led by Jake Lang, a far-right activist and critic of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat and the first Muslim to hold the office.
“Balat and Kayumi sought to incite fear and mass suffering through this alleged attempted terror attack in the backyard of an elected city official,” James Barnacle, who runs the FBI's New York office, said at a news conference after the brief court session.
The defendants said nothing in court, but Kayumi smirked and looked over at Balat as the judge read part of the complaint alleging they acted in support of the Islamic State group. Balat stared ahead at the defense table.
According to the complaint, Kayumi blurted out, as he was being arrested Saturday, that “ISIS” was the reason for his conduct. Balat later told authorities that he had pledged allegiance to the extremists, and Kayumi asserted that he was affiliated with the group, the complaint said.
Officers asked Balat whether he was aiming to accomplish something akin to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded hundreds more.
“No, even bigger,” Balat replied, according to the complaint.
Emir Balat’s lawyer, Mehdi Essmidi, said outside court that his client is a Philadelphia-area high school senior with “complicated stuff going on” in his personal life. “There’s a lot to figure out,” the attorney added.
Asked whether he believed Balat was a terrorist, the lawyer said: “I believe he’s 18 and he doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing.”
Kayumi’s lawyer, Michael Arthus, pointed in court to the extensive publicity surrounding the case and asked that prosecutors avoid saying anything that could prejudice potential jurors.
No one answered the door at a home listed as belonging to one of Kayumi's relatives in Newtown, Pennsylvania. At a home where neighbors said Balat lives in nearby Langhorne, a young man declined to comment when a reporter knocked on the door.
The FBI said Monday it has conducted multiple searches in connection with the investigation, including of a Pennsylvania storage unit.
A spokesperson for Neshaminy High School, located in Langhorne, confirmed that Balat is in his senior year there. He has not attended in-person classes since enrolling in the district’s virtual program this past September, according to a note sent to parents Monday by the district's superintendent.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said neither defendant had a criminal history. Essmidi said he didn’t believe the two young men had known each other for long.
“They are not known to each other. They do not live together. They did not have friendly, family or school ties,” Essmidi said. "There is no reason to believe they knew each other prior to this incident, and I don’t know how well they knew each other at the time of this incident.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi commented on social media that authorities “will not allow ISIS’s poisonous, anti-American ideology to threaten this nation.”
Tisch said there are no indications that the attack was connected to the ongoing war in Iran.
An automated license plate reader captured the defendants entering New York City from New Jersey less than an hour before the noontime attack, according to the complaint. Kayumi's mother filed a missing person report, saying she last saw him around 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
The men's vehicle — registered to one of Balat’s relatives — was discovered Sunday, a few blocks from where they were arrested. A search of the car turned up a fuse, a metal can, and a list of chemical ingredients and components that could be used to build explosives, the complaint said.
Lang's sparsely attended protest Saturday drew a far larger group of counterdemonstrators. Amid the faceoff, Balat tossed a jar-sized device that contained the explosive TATP into the crowd, the complaint said. The object also contained a fuse, plus an exterior layer of duct-taped nuts and bolts, the complaint said.
The device extinguished itself steps from police officers. According to the complaint, Balat then ran down the block and collected a second, similar device — which has yet to be tested for explosives — from Kayumi. Balat dropped it near some police officers and tried to run away, the complaint said. Police tackled Balat and soon arrested him and Kayumi.
“Violence that is meant to chill free speech, violence that is meant to keep us from assembling peaceably, will be met with swift justice,” Manhattan-based U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at a news conference Monday.
The scene had grown chaotic even before the devices were thrown. Police said one person involved in the anti-Islam demonstration, Ian McGinnis, 21, was arrested after he pepper-sprayed counterprotesters.
McGinnis, of Philadelphia, was released without bond after pleading not guilty Sunday to assault and aggravated harassment in a New York court, records show. His attorney, Steven Metcalf, said Monday that McGinnis was defending himself from counterprotesters.
Three others were arrested but released without charge.
Lang, who's running for U.S. Senate in Florida, was charged with assaulting an officer and other offenses during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He was later freed from prison as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency.
While Mamdani spoke to reporters Monday morning at the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, Lang heckled from outside the gates.
This story has been corrected to reflect that police are now identifying one of the suspects by the name Ibrahim Kayumi, instead of Ibrahim Nikks. Earlier headlines were corrected to show Tisch referred to the possibility of the suspects being inspired by rather than related to the Islamic State group.
Associated Press writers Michael Catalini in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and David Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed.
Police detain Emir Balat after he attempted to detonate an improvised explosive device during a counterprotest against far right influencer Jake Lang staging an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Julius Constantine Motal)
Police detain Emir Balat after he attempted to detonate an improvised explosive device during a counterprotest against far right influencer Jake Lang staging an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Julius Constantine Motal)
Police detain Emir Balat after he attempted to detonate an improvised explosive device during a counterprotest against far right influencer Jake Lang staging an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Julius Constantine Motal)
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference at Gracie Mansion, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, left, walks out of Gracie Mansion with New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch, second from left, to make an address at a news conference, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch speaks during a news conference with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Jake Lang demonstrates outside Gracie Mansion after a news conference by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani , Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
In this image taken from video, law enforcement officers respond to Manhattan's Upper East Side as New York City's police said they had identified a "suspicious device in a vehicle,” Sunday, March 8, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Joseph B. Frederick)
Jake Lang shouts from a sidewalk as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference at Gracie Mansion, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch speaks during a news conference with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
