International
US judge tosses murder conviction of man featured on ‘Serial’ podcast
AFP | by Charlotte PLANTIVE
A US judge on Monday threw out the conviction of a man who has served more than two decades in prison for his ex-girlfriend’s murder — a case that received worldwide attention thanks to the hit podcast “Serial.”
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn vacated the conviction of Adnan Syed, 42, who has been serving a life sentence since 2000 for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee.
Phinn ordered Syed released immediately on his own recognizance “in the interests of justice and fairness.”
Cheers erupted in the packed courtroom when the judge ordered officers to “remove the shackles” from Syed, who was sporting a thick beard and wearing a white shirt, dark tie and a white skullcap.
Lee’s body was found buried in February 1999 in a shallow grave in the woods of Baltimore, Maryland. The 18-year-old had been strangled.
Syed has steadfastly maintained his innocence but his multiple appeals had been denied, including by the US Supreme Court which declined in 2019 to hear his case.
In a surprise move last week, the Baltimore City state’s attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced that she had asked the court to vacate Syed’s conviction while a further investigation is carried out.
Assistant state’s attorney Becky Feldman told the judge on Monday the decision was prompted by the discovery of new information regarding two alternative suspects and the unreliability of cell phone data used to convict Syed.
“The state has lost confidence in the integrity of his conviction,” Feldman said. “We need to make sure we hold the correct person accountable.
“We will be continuing our investigation,” she said, while promising to “do everything we can to bring justice to the Lee family.”
Syed’s attorney, Erica Suter, also addressed the court, saying “my client is innocent.”
Suter was asked by reporters how Syed, who did not make any public statement, reacted to the judge’s decision.
“He said he could not believe it’s real,” she said.
‘Blindsided’
Baltimore City prosecutors now have 30 days to either bring new charges against Syed or dismiss the case.
“We’re not yet declaring Adnan Syed is innocent,” Mosby, the state’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing.
She said the state was awaiting the results of new DNA tests on Lee’s clothing before deciding whether to drop all charges or organize a new trial.
Before the hearing began, Lee’s brother, Young Lee, addressed the court by Zoom.
An emotional Lee said he was “kind of blindsided” by the prosecutor’s decision to vacate Syed’s conviction.
“Out of nowhere I hear that there’s a motion to vacate judgment,” he said. “It’s tough going through this again and again and again.”
Lee said he “trusts the court system” and asked the judge to “make the right decision.”
Syed’s case earned worldwide attention when it was taken up in 2014 by “Serial,” a weekly podcast that saw a journalist revisit his conviction and cast doubt on his guilt.
His case has also been the subject of a four-part documentary on the HBO channel called “The Case Against Adnan Syed.”
The “Serial” podcast — a mix of investigative journalism, first-person narrative and dramatic storytelling — focused its first season on Syed’s story in 12 nail-biting episodes.
Both Syed and Lee were high school honor students and children from immigrant families — he Pakistani, she South Korean — who had concealed their relationship from their conservative parents.
Prosecutors said during the trial that Syed was a scorned lover who felt humiliated after Lee broke up with him.
International
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.
“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.
“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.
Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.
Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”
The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.
International
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.
The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).
The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”
This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.
International
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, returned this Thursday to delegate – for the second time – the Presidency to the Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet of the Presidency Cynthia Gellibert, whom he himself appointed by decree vice president in charge, in the face of the open confrontation he maintains with the vice president, Verónica Abad.
As he did last week, Noboa again issued a decree in which he announces that he is absent from the Presidency from Thursday to Sunday, to make an electoral campaign in search of his re-election in the elections of February 9, and during that period of time it will be Gellibert who will be in charge of the head of the State.
This action of the president of Ecuador is a matter of evaluation by the ordinary and constitutional justice at the request of the vice president, Verónica Abad, who claims to assume the presidential functions during the full period of the electoral campaign, in which according to the Constitution the head of state must ask for leave for being a candidate for re-election.
In his decree, Noboa argues that, although the Constitution determines that the Vice Presidency must assume the head of State in the event of the absence of the president, this “is not limited to the elected vice-president, but to the person who to date is exercising the functions of the Vice Presidency.”
Before appointing Gellibert as vice president in charge by decree, Noboa sent Abad to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Turkey, after a judge annulled the five-month suspension that the same Government had imposed on him. Until now, the vice president remains in Ecuador to claim to be the one who temporarily assumes the Presidency.
The new period of Gellibert with presidential powers began at 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) this Thursday and is scheduled to end at 22:00 (03:00 GMT) next Sunday, time at which the debate between presidential candidates is expected to end where Noboa is summoned to participate.
After the debate, Noboa plans to travel to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Ecuadorian Presidency.
After the first assignment of the Presidency to Gellibert, Abad denounced a “coup d’état” and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Democratic Charter, considering that the constitutional order had been broken because it had not received the presidential powers, as contemplated in the Ecuadorian Constitution.
In addition, he filed a protection action with which he seeks that the Justice annul the decrees in which Noboa appointed Gellibert as vice president in charge and delegated the Presidency to him. A court admitted the appeal on Friday, but did not accept some precautionary measures that Abad also asked for to suspend those effects immediately.
Controversies like this will be part of the analysis and evaluation of the electoral observation mission (EOM) of the European Union (EU) for the Ecuadorian elections, as anticipated on Wednesday by its leader, Spanish MEP Gabriel Mato.
The confrontation between Noboa and Abad began in the electoral campaign for the second round of elections for the extraordinary elections of 2023, and was reflected when he assumed the charges, when in one of his first decisions, the president sent the vice president to Israel as ambassador, with the mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Abad has denounced Noboa for alleged political gender violence and has accused her of leading a harassment against her to force her to resign and thus avoid having to delegate the Presidency to her during the electoral campaign period, which runs from January 5 to February 6.
The titular vice president has also accused the Government of being behind the corruption investigation in the offices of the Vice Presidency that involves her son in a case where the Prosecutor’s Office also sought to indict Abad, but the National Assembly (Parliament) voted mostly against lifting the jurisdiction, although the ruling party voted in favor.
The general elections in Ecuador are called for Sunday, February 9 and, according to the polls published so far, Noboa and the candidate of the correismo Luisa González appear as prominent favorites to move on to the second round.
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