Nineteen years after the murder of Hae Min Lee and the murder conviction of her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals granted Syed a new trial on Thursday.
Rabia Chaudry, an attorney and family friend of Syed, helped garner international attention to his case through the “Serial” podcast in 2014 (which, according to Chaudry, has more than 500 million downloads). Chaudry told the Washington Examiner that this decision to grant Syed a new trial would not have happened without the podcast becoming so successful.
“Without ‘Serial,’ there would be no ‘Undisclosed.’ There would’ve been no other evidence,” Chaudry said. “Nobody would care about this case. … ‘Serial’ was instrumental in getting us this far.”
“Undisclosed” is another podcast venture, hosted by Chaudry, that takes a deep dive into “wrongful convictions, and the U.S. criminal justice system, by taking a closer look at the perpetration of a crime, its investigation, the trial, and ultimate verdict … and finding new evidence that never made it to court.” Their first season of “Undisclosed” was dedicated to Syed’s case, and the podcast, according to Chaudry, has more than 240 million downloads.
“When I finally decided to take the case to a journalist, I mean Sarah Koenig [the host of ‘Serial’] was interested almost instantly, which is great,” Chaudry said, adding that it took her 14 years after the start of the case to reach out to Koenig. “The success of that podcast has nothing to do with me. It was really due to the brilliance of their team creating an amazing story, and it took on a life of its own as soon as it was released.”
While Chaudry said she was quite emotional after the ruling was announced, people shouldn’t forget that the murder of Lee remains unsolved and justice has yet to be served.
“This is not only about Adnan. There is a victim here. There is a person who murdered her who’s out there, and if evidence still exists then [Marilyn Mosby, state attorney for Baltimore,] should reopen the case and bring that person to justice,” Chaudry added.
The ball, as Chaudry puts it, is now in the state’s court: the Maryland Court of Appeals. They can either decide to not take up the case, file an appeal with the Maryland Court of Appeals (which has the option of taking up the case or not), or the case can land on the desk of District Attorney Mosby, and she can “decide whether to go to trial, give him a plea deal, or drop charges.”
Chaudry believes that the most likely path with where the case will go now is that the state will file an appeal, the Maryland Court of Appeals will not hear the case, and then it will go to Mosby’s office which, Chaudry believes, will offer a plea deal.
“I would hope that she would drop charges and reopen the case, reopen the investigation into the murder of Hae Min Lee.”
