New evidence has been submitted in the case of Adnan Syed, who became the subject of the hit podcast Serial last year.
Syed was sentenced to life for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend, but his lawyer has claimed that key mobile phone data was unreliable.
The prosecution’s case in 2000 relied heavily on mobile phone data said to have placed Syed at the park in Baltimore, Maryland where Lee’s body was buried.
The weekly podcast, which depicted the investigation and trial, had listeners gripped and evoked uncertainty about Syed’s conviction.
A motion filed to the court by C Justin Brown, Syed’s lawyer, claims that the evidence from the mast was unreliable and should never have been allowed in evidence.
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AT&T, the mobile phone company, had issued a warning about the reliability of the accuracy of data from mobile phone towers, according to the submission.
A cover sheet from the company read: “Outgoing calls only are reliable for location status. Any incoming calls will NOT be considered reliable information for location.”
Syed, who was 17 at the time and is now 35, has always maintained his innocence.
His conviction was thrown into the spotlight when Sarah Koenig, a radio producer, investigated the case for her 12-week podcast.
Serial was downloaded more than five million times in the UK and more than 76 million times in the US. Ms Koenig used phone calls, evidence from independent investigations, footage of court proceedings and interviews with Syed’s classmates.
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It became the subject of conversation around the country as people debated the why and wherefores of the case and conviction.
Earlier this year, Syed was granted permission to appeal against his life sentence. His lawyers are appealing to re-open the case entirely.
Mr Brown argued that Cristina Gutierrez, his former counsel, failed to negotiate a plea agreement, despite numerous requests to do so. A student who could account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder was never asked to testify, it was claimed.
There were no witnesses to the murder but Jay Wilds, another former classmate, testified that he helped Syed dispose of the body.