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.

Follow the discussion online with #AdnansStory and following @NewAmericaISP.

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:

Peter Bergen @peterbergencnn
Director, New America’s International Security Program