A Maryland judge has formally sentenced Adnan Syed to the time he has already served in prison, appearing to finally bring to a close a long-running case with numerous legal twists and turns that received worldwide attention from the true-crime podcast Serial.
Judge Jennifer Schiffer had already decided that Syed would remain free in a recent written ruling, even though his conviction in the murder of his ex-girlfriend in 1999 when they were in high school still stands.
Syed’s sentence was modified under a relatively new state law that provides a pathway to release for people convicted of crimes committed when they were minors. The modified sentence includes five years of supervised probation.
At a brief hearing in Baltimore, Schiffer modified his probationary conditions slightly to enable him to travel to Washington DC and Virginia without seeking specific permission from a probation agent. Syed, 43, has a job at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative. He also has family in Virginia.
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