Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial

In early 2000, Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life for the murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee, a high school senior in Baltimore, Maryland. Syed maintained his innocence, and Rabia Chaudry, a family friend, believed him. By 2013, Rabia contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life and in 2014, Koenig's investigation turned into "Serial," a Peabody Award-winning podcast with more than 500 million international listeners. But Serial did not tell the whole story. In this compelling narrative, Rabia Chaudry presents new key evidence that she maintains dismantles the State's case: a potential new suspect, forensics indicating Hae was killed and kept somewhere for almost half a day, and documentation withheld by the State that destroys the cell phone evidence — among many other points — and she shows how fans of Serial joined a crowd-sourced investigation into a case riddled with errors and strange twists. Adnan's Story also shares Adnan’s life in prison, and weaves in his personal reflections, including never-before-seen letters.

Rabia Chaudry is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial and a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at U.S. Institute of Peace, where she researches the intersection of religion and violent extremism. Her regions of interest are Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Prior to USIP she was an International Security Program fellow at New America, where she developed and led a Countering Violent Extremism community project in partnership with Google, Facebook and Twitter. She is the Founder of the Safe Nation Collaborative, a CVE training firm. Rabia received her Juris Doctorate from the George Mason School of Law and practiced immigration and civil rights law for over a decade before moving into the CVE policy sphere. She is the public advocate of Adnan Syed, the man at the center of the most popular podcast in history, “Serial,” and is the co-producer and co-host of the podcast “Undisclosed,” with over 100 million downloads.

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Copies of the book will be available for purchase by check and credit card.

Participant:

Rabia Chaudry @rabiasquared
Author, Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow, U.S. Institute of Peace

Marcia Chatelain @DrMChatelain
Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow, New America
Associate Professor, Georgetown University

Moderator: