Judge formally sentences Adnan Syed to time served in Serial murder case
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.
Syed's attorney, Erica Suter, requested unsupervised probation at the hearing, but the judge decided not to go that far.
'I am mindful that Mr Syed requested unsupervised probation, but given the relief that this court has already granted on these extraordinarily serious and tragic charges, I believe I've shown more consideration to him than anyone could have expected,' Schiffer said.
The judge's ruling followed a February hearing that included emotional testimony from Syed and relatives of the victim, Hae Min Lee, who was strangled and buried in a shallow grave in a Baltimore park.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys told Schiffer that Syed does not pose a risk to public safety. The judge reminded Syed, who watched Friday's proceedings online, that his suspended sentence still potentially looms over him. He was sentenced in 2000 to life in prison plus 30 years for first-degree murder and other charges.
'I hope Mr Syed, and I trust, that this will be the last time we see each other,' Schiffer said. 'Otherwise, I don't have to tell you the amount of time that's hanging over your head.'
Syed, who was 17 when Lee was killed and has maintained his innocence, was released from prison in 2022 after Baltimore prosecutors said they had uncovered problems with the case and moved to vacate his conviction. It was later reinstated on appeal.
Lee's family and their attorney said old wounds were ripped open when Syed's conviction was vacated by a former state's attorney. The family later succeeded in getting the conviction reinstated after challenging the ruling on procedural grounds, arguing they didn't receive proper notice to attend the hearing that freed Syed from prison, where they participated only through a video connection.
David Sanford, an attorney for Lee's family, said Friday's hearing 'brings to a close the long saga of Adnan Syed'. He said the family was grateful to the court for giving them 'due respect throughout these proceedings, allowing us to fully argue to the court the victim's position'.
'The family is also thankful to the Maryland supreme court for its historic decision in this case, which grants victims particular rights previously enshrined generally in the Maryland state constitution,' Sanford said. 'As a result, victims now have the right to be heard, the right to be present, and the right to meaningfully participate in criminal justice proceedings.'
The current Baltimore state's attorney, Ivan Bates, who publicly raised doubts about the integrity of the conviction before becoming the city's top prosecutor, said in February that his office believes in the jury's verdict and has no plans to continue investigating the case.
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The Independent
22-05-2025
- The Independent
Georgetown scholar recalls terror and 'mockery of due process' in immigration jail
One of the lowest moments of Badar Khan Suri's two months in federal custody was being crammed onto an airplane with hundreds of other shackled prisoners. The Trump administration was trying to deport the Georgetown University scholar over statements he made against Israel's war in Gaza. The guards wouldn't say where they were headed, but the Indian national was convinced it was out of the United States. Then Khan Suri had to use the plane's bathroom. He said the guards refused to unshackle his wrists. 'They said, 'No, you have to use it like this or do it in your trousers,'' Khan Suri recalled of the trip, taking him to a Louisiana detention center. 'They were behaving as if we were animals.' Khan Suri, 41, was released on bond last week as his lawsuit against the U.S.'s deportation case continues. In an interview with The Associated Press, he spoke Thursday of repeated lies by prison guards who said he could talk to his wife when he couldn't. His living quarters were a cramped open cell with a toilet where he worried and waited anxiously, fearful about what would happen next. Speaking with The AP, he addressed the Trump administration's accusations that he spread ' Hamas propaganda.' Khan Suri said he only spoke in support of Palestinians, who are going through an 'unprecedented, livestreamed genocide.' 'I don't support Hamas,' he said. 'I support Palestine. I support Palestinians. And it is so deceiving for some people who just publish canards ... They will just replace Palestine with Hamas.' Yet, because of his comments, he said U.S. authorities treated him as if he had committed a high-level crime. Fellow inmates said his red uniform was reserved for the most dangerous offenders. 'I said, 'No, I'm just a university teacher. I did nothing,' Khan Suri recalled. Still, there were rays of hope. He said more than a hundred people from the Georgetown community wrote letters on his behalf to the federal judge overseeing his case, including some who are Jewish. A crowd also greeted him when he arrived back in Virginia. 'Hindus, Jews, Christians, Muslims — everyone together,' said Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow who studies religion, peace and violence. 'That is the reality I want to live with. That's the reality I want to die for. Those people together.' 'I was not in Russia or North Korea' U.S. Immigration authorities have detained international college students from across the country — many of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war — since the early days of Trump's second administration. The administration has said it revoked Khan Suri's visa because he was 'spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media," while also citing his connections to 'a senior advisor to Hamas,' which court records indicate is his wife Mapheze Saleh's father. Saleh is a Palestinian American whose father worked with the Hamas-backed Gazan government in the early 2000s, but before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Khan Suri's attorneys have said. They also said he barely knew his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef. Khan Suri's attorneys said he wouldn't comment on Yousef during Thursday's interview, which mostly covered his arrest and time in custody. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Khan Suri's statements. Khan Suri said he was arrested just after he taught his weekly class on minority rights and the majority. Masked police in plain clothes pulled up in an unmarked car outside his suburban Washington home. They showed no documentation, such as a warrant, he said. Other than saying his visa was being revoked, they refused to explain the reason for his arrest. He described it as a 'kidnapping." 'This is not some authoritarian regime,' Khan Suri said. 'I was not in Russia or North Korea. I was in the best place in the world. So, I was shocked.' 'How can this be happening?' As police whisked him away, Khan Suri realized they wanted to deport him. The 'dehumanizing procedures' came next: A finger scan, a DNA cotton swab and chains binding his wrists, waist and ankles, he said. They also said he could talk to his wife at a detention center in Virginia, but 'that never happened." He said he slept on a floor without a blanket and used a toilet monitored by a camera. The next day, he said he and other detainees were placed in a van, which soon rolled up to an airplane. 'I asked them where I am going now? Nobody would reply anything,' Khan Suri said. 'They just pushed us in.' He said the bathroom situation did not get better at a federal detention center in Louisiana, where Khan Suri was taken next. It lacked a privacy barrier and was also watched by a camera. He was finally able to call his wife, but he said she couldn't hear him. Khan Suri said he was 'extremely terrified,' thinking that someone was making his family not reply. He was not able to speak to a lawyer, while fellow inmates said everyone there is deported within three days, Khan Suri said. 'I was crying from inside, 'How can this be happening?" he said. 'A few hours back, I was in Georgetown teaching my students, talking about peace and conflict analysis.' Through the abyss Khan Suri said his first seven or eight days of captivity were the same: 'Same terror. Same fear. Same uncertainty. Same mockery of rule of law.' 'I was going more and more deeper, reaching to my abyss,' he added. 'And I was discovering that the abyss also has more and more depth.' But he was still praying five times a day, uncertain which direction Mecca was. 'I was very strong like that, that God will help me. American Constitution will help me. American people will help me,' he said. Afterward, Khan Suri was transferred to a detention facility in Texas, where he said he slept on the floor of a crowded cell for the first two weeks. Eventually, he got his own cot. And, finally, he was allowed to speak to his attorneys, which he said led to a change in treatment. He soon received a Quran and then a prayer rug. As for the rug, he rolled it up like it was his son. 'My eyes would become wet, and I would give that blanket a hug as my son so that this hug should reach him,' Khan Suri said. 'And when I came back, he told me the same, that he was hugging a pillow.' ___ Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
BreakingNews.ie
14-05-2025
- BreakingNews.ie
Georgetown student released from immigration detention after judge's ruling
A Georgetown scholar from India who was arrested amid the Trump administration's crackdown on foreign college students was released from immigration detention on Wednesday after a federal judge's ruling. Badar Khan Suri, who was being held in Texas, will go home to his family in Virginia while he awaits the outcome of his petition against the Trump administration for wrongful arrest and detention in violation of the First Amendment and other constitutional rights. Advertisement He is also facing deportation proceedings in an immigration court in Texas. Immigration authorities have detained college students from across the country — many of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war — since the first days of the Trump administration. Mr Khan Suri is the latest to win release from custody, along with Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University. Mr Khan Suri was arrested by masked, plain-clothed officers on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. He was then put on a plane to Louisiana and later to a detention centre in Texas. Advertisement Mapheze Saleh, wife of detained Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) The Trump administration has said that it revoked Mr Khan Suri's visa because of his social media posts and his wife's connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the US has designated as a terrorist organisation. Mr Khan Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, have been targeted because Ms Saleh's father worked with the Hamas-backed Gazan government for more than a decade, but before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, Mr Khan Suri's attorneys say. According to the US government, Mr Khan Suri has undisputed family ties to the terrorist organisation, which he 'euphemistically refers to as 'the government of Gaza''. But the American Civil Liberties Union has said that Mr Khan Suri hardly knew the father, Ahmed Yousef. Advertisement US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria said she was releasing Mr Khan Suri because she felt he had substantial constitutional claims against the Trump administration. She also considered the needs of his family and said she didn't believe he was a danger to the community. 'Speech regarding the conflict there and opposing Israel's military campaign is likely protected political speech,' Judge Giles said. 'And thus he was likely engaging in protected speech.' The judge added: 'The First Amendment does not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens.' Advertisement Judge Giles acknowledged the Trump administration's need to prioritise national security, but said that 'whatever deference may be appropriate, concerns of national security' do not supersede the judiciary. David Byerley, a Justice Department attorney, had argued against Mr Khan Suri's release. He told the judge that Mr Khan Suri's First Amendment case is inextricably intertwined with the deportation case in Texas, so he should stay there. He also cited costs of redetaining Mr Khan Suri as a reason to not grant him bail. After the court hearing, Mr Khan Suri's lawyers declared victory and criticised the Trump administration for 'disappearing' people over their ideas. 'He should have never had his First Amendment rights, which protect all of us regardless of citizenship, trampled on because ideas are not illegal,' said Sophia Gregg, an ACLU attorney. Advertisement 'Americans don't want to live in a country where the federal government disappears people whose views it doesn't like. If they can do this to Dr Suri, they can do this to anyone.' Mr Khan Suri, an Indian citizen, came to the US in 2022 through a J-1 visa, working at Georgetown as a visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow. He and his wife have three children: a nine-year-old son and five-year-old twins. Before his arrest, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, according to court records. The filings said he hoped to become a professor and embark on a career in academia.
Glasgow Times
14-05-2025
- Glasgow Times
Judge says student can be released from immigration detention as case proceeds
Badar Khan Suri was arrested by masked, plain-clothed officers on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife's connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the US has designated as a terrorist organisation. Mapheze Saleh, wife of detained Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) By the time Mr Khan Suri's petition was filed, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, his attorneys said. A few days later, he was moved again to Texas. Before Wednesday's hearing, US attorneys argued that Mr Khan Suri's case should be moved from Virginia to Texas because the petition was filed after the scholar had already left the state. They said filing his case in Texas is a 'relatively straightforward application of well-settled law.' The Trump administration said it quickly moved Mr Khan Suri from a facility in Farmville, Virginia, because it was overcrowded and a nearby detention centre in Caroline County had 'no available beds and only had limited emergency bedspace.' But the judge denied the government's request, observing in an opinion memo that after landing in Texas, Mr Khan Suri had to sleep on a plastic cot on the floor of an overcrowded detention centre in Texas and, according to his attorneys, he now sleeps on a bed in an overcrowded dormitory with about 50 other people. Judge Giles agreed with Mr Khan Suri's attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that it had appeared the real reason he was moved to Texas was to bring the case before a more conservative court. The government's representations, Judge Giles wrote, 'are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the fact that Prairieland Detention Centre, where Petitioner (Khan Suri) is currently held, is overcrowded.' Mr Khan Suri, an Indian citizen, came to the US in 2022 through a J-1 visa, working at Georgetown as a visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow. He and wife Saleh have three children: a nine-year-old son and five-year-old twins. Before his arrest, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, according to court records. The filings said he hoped to become a professor and embark on a career in academia. The ACLU has argued that arrests on such grounds violated his constitutional rights.
