Rabia Chaudry - Adnans Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial

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For the millions in history imprisoned unjustly.

For those who fight for the helpless.

For Aunty, Uncle, Yusuf, and Tanveer, who lived this nightmare alone for seventeen years.

For Adnan, who gives us all the hope we need to fight for him, however long it may take.

For Hae.

Bismillah.

Malik reported: Amir Az-Zubair would stop speaking whenever he heard thunder and he would say, Glory to Him who said: The thunder exalts His praise as well as the angels from fear of Him, ( Quran 13:13). Then Amir would say, This is a strong warning to the people of the earth.

Imam Malik, Muwatta, 8th century B.C.E.

When Adnan was convicted, it thundered three times. The day was bright and sunny, but as we sat there clutching our hands while the foreman pronounced the verdicts, it thundered.

February 25, 2000, was a Friday, which was a good sign. Fridays are auspicious for Muslims. It is a blessed day, our day of sermons and congregational prayer, the day we start all new things with a bism`illah, invoking the name of God.

I sat with Adnans mother, Aunty Shamim, while other members of the community were scattered behind us. Aunty looked straight ahead stoically, a scarf draped over her head, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her oldest son. I prayed silently as the jury was brought in. On the other side of the wooden railing, Adnan stood with his lawyer. Tall and skinny, facial hair coming in sparsely over his pale face, he was barely entering manhood.

The foreman rose.

On the first count, murder in the first degree: guilty. It thundered and we all turned our heads, looking out the courtroom windows at the clear skies, stunned.

On the second count, kidnapping by fraud: guilty. Then it thundered a second time and we again turned our faces, scanning the sunny outdoors, confused.

On the third count, robbery: guilty. It thundered again. This time I only glanced outside, keeping my face turned toward Adnans slight figure, paralyzed. By the time the fourth count was read, false imprisonment, I had tuned out, my ears filled with the rush of blood.

Closing arguments had been made only a few hours earlier; we had just begun contemplating where to eat lunch when we were called back to the courthouse. A verdict had been reached. A fast and hard verdict. The weekend loomed ahead after all.

The bailiff approached Adnan and closed cuffs around his wrists and ankles, the same ones he had worn shuffling in and out of court day after day. There were audible gasps and sobs, some escaping me as I rocked back and forth in my seat, repeating no, no, no This was not actually happening. We were told this was not going to happen.

Then Adnan turned to ushis mother, his brother, his friends, his communityand said, Its ok. I didnt do it. Allah knows I didnt do it.

* * *

Adnan Syed was seventeen when he was arrested for the murder of his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999 in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. He was convicted and sentenced to life plus thirty years. My younger brother Saads best friend, Adnan is like a brother to me, and for seventeen years now my family and I have stood by him as he has maintained his innocence.

I was in law school when Adnan was arrested and still a student when he was convicted. I was never Adnans lawyer. But my life has remained tethered to Adnan through an abiding belief that he is innocent.

In 2013, after exhausting almost all appeals, I contacted Sarah Koenig, a producer at This American Life . Her subsequent investigation turned into the podcast Serial, an international phenomenon and the most successful podcast ever produced.

Serial told a riveting who-done-it tale in such a masterful way that some people did not realize it was a true story even after the twelve episodes ended. The story it told was true, but it wasnt the whole truth, or the whole story.

The success of the podcast was understandable, if not completely expected. This is a story constructed of dozens and dozens of layers, an array of odd characters, malfeasance and misjudgments, and the aligning of all that can go wrong, and must go wrong, to convict an innocent person. But the real allure of Serial was the man at the center of the story, Adnan. Listeners were left wondering, week after week, about who he really was.

Serial presented two options. Adnan was either an innocent, wrongfully convicted young man who had suffered a great travesty of justice. Or he was a cold-blooded psychopathic murderer, driven by either jealousy or brutal religious beliefs, who had managed to manipulate his loved ones into believing his innocence for fifteen years.

This book will tell the stories Serial didnt and address issues of justice, bigotry, faith, community, devastation, healing, and hope from the point of view of Adnan and those who support him. I am here to tell Adnans story as, after so many years of living it and studying it, I see it. But more importantly, to give Adnan his own voice back. Throughout the book, Adnans own contributions will do just that.

We decreed on the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul,

unless for another killing or for spreading corruption in the land,

it is as if he had slain mankind entirely.

And whoever saves oneit is as if he had saved mankind entirely.

Holy Quran 5:32

Leakin Park is beautiful and quiet. Heavily wooded, yet nestled amid densely populated urban neighborhoods in West Baltimore, its three hundred acres adjoin Gwynn Oak Park seamlessly, forming over a thousand acres of nature in the middle of a city not known for outdoor beauty. Other than a hushed flow of water, its peace is disturbed only by cars passing through on Franklintown Road.

To horror film aficionados Leakin Park should look familiarthe sequel to the cult classic Blair Witch Project was partially filmed there. It may have been the parks reputation that drew the filmmakers to it. Leakin Park is a notorious dumping ground for bodies. The remains of at least sixty-eight murdered people have been found there in the past five decades, most recently in November 2012.