A couple of months ago, my sister introduced me to a very interesting and engaging true-life story, creatively told through the medium of an internet digital audio file, otherwise known as a Podcast. It was called ‘Serial Podcast’ and it followed the unraveling of one specific, true-life story of a murder and a conviction, which took place in America in 1999. This one story was told in the format of a suspense tale, in weekly installments, over the course of a whole season. Every week, as the story unfolded, the podcast unraveled the plots, characters and facts of the case and the listeners followed it, without knowing the final outcome until the very end of the podcast season.
For those who enjoy reading murder mysteries, ‘Serial Podcast’ is much like reading a thriller novel with an audio twist, together with sound effects which makes a listener feel as if they are actually witnessing the crime and are present in the court case that followed. It was quite riveting.
The true-life story covered in this first season of ‘Serial Podcast’ focuses on the mystery surrounding the 1999 murder of an 18-year-old girl named Hae Min Lee and the life sentence handed down to her friend, Adnan Syed, for her murder. In the Podcast, journalist, Sarah Koenig reopens the case that was closed 16 years ago; listens to the trial testimony, police interrogations, speaks to parties that were involved in the case over a decade ago and analyses legal documents and investigators’ notes.
As the weeks progressed and the story developed, listeners learned that the trial of Adnan Syed was rather unbalanced, his conviction was unconvincing and the circumstances that surrounded his life sentence rather questionable.
Advertisement
From the sheer professional negligence of Adnan’s legal team, to contradictory statements given by witnesses and the police, to the inconclusive evidence, and the vague alibis provided or missed, in Season One of ‘Serial Podcast,’ Sarah Koenig and her team look for answers to the glaring loopholes and explores the possibility that, despite his conviction, Adnan Syed, who has been in jail for 15 years, serving a life sentence for the murder of Hae Min Lee since the age of 17, was actually innocent of the crime.
Last year Adnan Syed petitioned the courts for a chance to overturn his conviction in a Post Conviction Appeal when the Court of Special Appeals took interest in the case. This was filed after it emerged that Adnans’ original lawyer never pursued a key witness who provided Adnan with an alibi and claimed to be with him in their school library at the very time he was alleged to have been committing the murder of Hae Min Lee.
After following the story thoroughly, keeping in mind that this is a real life story, affecting real people, in which there was a tragic murder of a brilliant young lady and the possible miscarriage of justice of an equally brilliant 17 year old young man, as my contribution to his Post Conviction Appeal and with the hope of opening the story up to a new audience here in Nigeria and Africa, I will put on my Lawyers’ Wig and Robe and use this medium to give my legal analysis and impression of the case. Hopefully readers will come on this journey to legally analyze this criminal case with me.
Advertisement
In this op-ed, I intend to explore the facts and give my opinion on whether I believe Adnan Syed is a murdering sociopath and ultimately guilty of committing the murder for which he is presently serving a life sentence for or whether he was an innocent but unlucky victim of a highly incompetent legal team and overwhelmed by freak coincidences on the day Hae Min Lee was presumably murdered.
Before going further to read my legal analysis in the case of Hae Min Lee’s murder and the trial of Adnan Syed covered in the ‘Serial Podcast,’ I urge readers to take a break at this point and listen to the full podcast so that they can follow my analysis, have a full appreciation of my legal scrutiny of the case or form their own theory of what happened in this captivating yet tragic tale.
Because ‘Serial Podcast’ is an online series, which provides the chapters of the story in progressive form, to follow the story properly, it is important to listen to the Serial episodes in order, starting with episode 1, all the way through to episode 12. Each of the episodes lasts approximately 45 minutes with Sarah Koenig walking listeners through the case as she interviews people, and uncovers new and startling facts.
All twelve episodes of the ‘Serial Podcast’ can be accessed online on:
Advertisement
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCNEfYhe0395GgICpo6w6og
…The story, as is covered in the case documents, picks up on January 13, 1999 when a girl named Hae Min Lee, a student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, America, disappeared. All efforts to find her failed until a month later when her dead body was dug up in a park not far from where she went to school.
From the autopsy results performed on her body, it was determined that Hae Min Lee had been strangled to death before being buried. After an anonymous caller told the police to investigate him, Hae’s 17-year-old friend, Adnan Syed, was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for her murder. The case against him was largely based on testimony provided by an acquaintance of his, named Jay, who claimed that he helped Adnan bury Hae’s body.
Advertisement
While Adnan has always maintained he had nothing to do with Hae’s death, it was the ‘Serial Podcast,’ which shed light on his case and led many to start contemplating whether Adnan was actually telling the truth. Whether he was not guilty of the murder, thus making his life sentence a grave miscarriage of justice.
Right off the bat, I must say that this case wasn’t a clear-cut one for me, even after thourouly going through the facts, as stated. It is one where my legal opinion and personal opinion may not quite match up. Truth be told, it is one that really confused me, even now as I write this legal analysis on it. One where, although I do not think Adnan should have been found guilty of murder on points of law, I cannot categorically say that I am able to argue his innocence 100%. Much like the producers of Serial Podcast, try as I may, I’m not certain as to Adnan Syed’s guilt or innocence either way. But one thing I am sure of is, there was enough doubt in the prosecution’s case to rubbish his conviction.
Advertisement
As a criminal case, in which the burden of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ I cannot understand how the prosecution was able to sustain a conviction of murder in this particular matter or how the jury was able to find cause in sentencing Adnan to life behind bars with the evidence that was presented to them. Based purely on the facts presented in court during the trial and exposed in the Podcast, whether he committed the crime or not, Adnan Syed should actually be a free man today.
In my opinion, the prosecution did not even come a smidgen close to satisfying the burden of ‘beyond reasonable doubt,’ which they are obligated to meet.
Advertisement
However, even if Adnan Syed should not have been found guilty of murder on points of law, there remain several queries and unanswered questions, which would prevent one from confidently arguing for his innocence. Thus, as I previously mentioned, while I don’t think he should have been convicted of murder in a court of law, I also am not sure he is being completely open with all the facts.
I’ll explain…
Advertisement
Even though there are so many facts that were brought up in the podcast, I will, first of all, focus on the few, which would and should have raised a ‘reasonable doubt’ as to the guilt of Adnan Syed and prevented his murder conviction.
After following the story and listening to the podcast, I’m sure readers will agree that the date-of-interest for us in analyzing this case is January 13, 1999, when Hae Min Lee according to the prosecution left school at 2.15pm to pick up her little cousin at a Learning Centre. Hae was to pick up the younger relative at 3.15pm but she never showed up at the Learning Centre. From the time she supposedly left her school at 2:15 pm on that fateful day, no one saw Hae alive again. After some weeks, her dead body was found buried at a nearby park.
During the trial, the prosecutions’ chief witness was a man named Jay who, in the aftermath of the murder, ended up leading law enforcement to Hae’s vehicle. Jay was an acquaintance of Adnans’ and he claimed that, on January 13, 1999 (the day Hae went missing), Adnan randomly gave him the use of Adnan’s new phone and vehicle. Jay claims that he and Adnan were not friends but mere acquaintances. It later came to light that Jay used to sell marijuana to the local kids in the area and his connection with Adnan was that the latter was one of his customers.
Adnan confirms that he gave Jay the use of his new phone and personal car on that day but claims he did so only because it was the birthday of Jay’s lady friend, Stephanie, and he wanted Jay to be able to treat her to a nice birthday. Apart from being Jay’s friend, Stephanie was also a good platonic friend to Adnan and Adnan insists he gave the car and phone for the benefit of Stephanie, not necessarily Jay’s.
Jay disputes this. In his court submission, Jay contends that the real reason Adnan gave him the phone and car was not to treat Stephanie, it was because Adnan planned to kill Hae. According to Jay, the plan was for Adnan to murder Hae, then call Jay on the phone that Adnan had lent to Jay so that Jay could pick up Adnan with the car and help him dispose of Hae’s dead body.
In the court documents, as part of the evidence exhibits, the cellphone record for the phone Adnan was supposed to have lent to Jay was submitted. The phone record shows that a call was made to Adnan’s phone, which was in the possession of Jay, at exactly 2.36pm; 21 minutes after the time that the prosecution says Hae had gotten out of school. This call made to that particular phone is extremely significant because it is the call that the Prosecution claim Adnan made to Jay after he had committed the murder, in order for the latter to come and pick him up and help dispose of the body. So clearly, the State is making the case that whatever happened to Hae Min Lee happened by 2:36pm.
To be clear, all the facts that we are working with for this legal analysis are those presented by the prosecution to build their case.
As part of the States’ case, Adnan made that stipulated call from an unidentified phone from the location of the Best-Buy to the phone he had given Jay. Thus, the 21minute window we are using is purely based on the time between 2:15pm (when the prosecution say Hae left school) and 2:36pm (the time of the call on the phone record which the prosecution says was Adnan calling Jay from the Best-Buy to say Hae was dead).
The actual events may have happened very differently on that day but this timeline is strictly the one that was presented by the prosecution. Had it been determined that Hae was murdered 20 or 30 minutes before or after the limited window that the prosecution presents, it would likely change everything. But since the prosecution provided only the 21minute timeline, from 2:15pm to 2:36pm, then that is the timeline I will use.
With that said, it is established that the prosecution places Hae’s murder to have been committed before or, at least, by 2:36pm; 21 minutes after the prosecution claims Hae left the school premises.
Now keeping this in mind, here is where I want to point out the first legal problem for the prosecution in this matter. It is a problem, which should have automatically raised a ‘reasonable doubt’ in the prosecutions’ case and completely shattered their case to smithereens.
You see, by the time of the 2.36pm call (which is verified by the phone records) the prosecution’s theory is that Adnan was supposed to have strangled Hae in her car a few miles from her school in the parking lot of a near Best-Buy retail store. However, there are witnesses who claim to have seen Hae at the concession stand on the school premises at 2:26pm, a time which the prosecution claims she was on her way to the Best-Buy with Adnan in her car.
The witnesses who testified to this were predominantly her fellow students who claim to have seen her after classes had been dismissed at 2:15pm. Even-though most of the witnesses were young I would attach significant weight to their testimony in this instance. I do so because I believe, after getting out of classes at 2:15pm, for Hae to be seen on the school premises at 2:26pm it would mean she would have had to hang about in school for 11 minutes or so. If that were the case, then I would think it is reasonable to presume that the students who saw her would remember if they were also hanging about in school after classes.
Hanging about after classes, socializing and chit chatting is the sort of thing that young students would remember. It is not farfetched for her friends to remember whether they saw Hae after school or not, especially when it emerged that she had been missing and her dead body was later found, making that January 13, 1999, 2:26pm sighting the last moments anyone had seen her alive. I would think it would be reasonable to rely on the testimony of Hae’s friends who claim to have seen her after 2:26pm on that fateful day.
If the 2:26pm sighting of Hae on the school premises is to be believed, it would have left only 10 minutes for Hae to leave the school and get to the Best-Buy, where the state claims Adnan strangled her.
In the Podcast, one of the producers retraced the possible steps of Hae, going to the concession stand, as was stated by the witnesses who say they saw Hae on the school premises at 2:26pm. From going to the concession stand, carrying out the same supposed transactions, getting back into her car and driving to the Best-Buy to meet Adnan, a reenactment took the producer altogether, 18minutes.
If those witnesses evidence is to be relied on, it leaves Adnan with just over 3minutes to get into her car, strangle her and put her body in the boot of the car before calling Jay to inform him of the murder at that crucial time of 2:36pm. Going by this timeline, which gives Adnan 3minutes to commit the murder, it would be absolutely preposterous for any jury to lend credibility to it.
Additionally, there were several other witnesses who claimed to have seen Hae at different times on the school premises after the 2:36pm time that the State stipulates she had been murdered. Court records show that there was a witness who operates a convenient store next to the school that Adnan and Hae attended. This is the same school, which both are alleged to have left together on that fateful day. This witness claims that she saw Hae drive away from the High School on that very day and the witness claims that Adnan was not in the car with her. This is the same time that the prosecution claims Hae drove off with Adnan on the journey which presumably ended in her murder. This sworn witness testimony, had it been taken into consideration, further punches a hole in the prosecution’s ability to satisfy the burden of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ with the timeline they used.
In another instance, a friend of Hae’s called Summer recalls having a heated discussion with Hae in regards to their school’s wrestling team, which they co-managed around 2:30 or 2:45.m on that very day. There were also other classmates of Hae’s who claim to have seen her in the school premises at 3pm on that same day.
Had the jury taken the several witness evidence that Hae had been seen on the school premises after 2:15pm into consideration, this alone would have blown the prosecution’s time line an case out of the water, creating ‘reasonable doubt’ in their theory of when the murder took place.
Remember, the 2:36pm that the prosecution claims Adnan called Jay to inform him that Hae had been murdered, cannot be shifted because we know that there is clear evidence of it in the phone records. As long as the Prosecution claims that the 2:36pm call was made by Adnan to Jay to inform him of the murder, then every action of Adnan’s that the prosecution says presumably led to the murder of Hae ‘must’ be placed before that 2:36pm.
Even in a situation where the prosecution and, by extension, the Jury rejects the evidence of the witnesses who claim that they saw Hae in school at 2:26pm or later and are gung-ho in believing that Hae left school with Adnan at 2:15pm, I’d like to look further at the practicality of the time frame in which the prosecution alleges the events took place from that perspective. If we lend ourselves to the State’s theory, then we are to be satisfied that Hae left school at 2:15pm when Adnan convinced Hae to give him a ride to the Best-Buy shopping complex. It is upon getting to the Best-Buy shopping complex that Adnan presumably strangles Hae and uses a pay phone to call Jay.
For clarity, in the prosecution’s version, when Hae got out of class at 2.15pm, Adnan approached her and asks, “Hae can I have a ride?” Friends of both Adnan and Hae maintain that the two remained on friendly terms after the breakup of their relationship, so Adnan asking Hae for a ride wasn’t peculiar.
Before making my argument of how this timeframe suggested by the State still poses a problem for its case, I just want to make sure we remember that the time the prosecution says Hae left school was 2:15pm (after classes) and the time Adnan allegedly called Jay to inform him of the murder was 2:36pm. This provides a window of 21 minutes within which Adnan is alleged to have left school with Hae, executed his plan and committed the murder.
All of these actions are supposed to have happened in that short 21minute timeframe. While it is not totally impossible for these actions to take place within 21 minutes of each other, the timeframe should have still posed a problem for the prosecutions’ case.
And the problem is this:
Can one, in earnest, assert that a 21 minute timeline allows Adnan to ride with Hae to the Best-Buy, strangle her in the parking lot while they are both still in the car, get out of the car from the passenger side, go to the back of the car, open the boot, walk over to the driver’s side, open the door, take Hae’s lifeless body, carry her to the boot, lock her in the trunk and place the call to Jay from a pay phone to inform him of Hae’s murder? Was there really enough time for him to do all that? Is it a reasonable gap of time for the chain of events, which the prosecution claims to have taken place to occur?
In ‘Serial Podcast,’ the journalists and producers put the timeline question to the test and re-enacted the movement of Adnan, which was suggested by the prosecutors. The result was; they were able to drive from the High School to the Best-Buy car park within the stipulated 21 minutes. If the podcast investigators could do it within that time, then it would have been possible for Adnan to make it on the day he allegedly murdered Hae…right…?
But I’m not sure I agree with that! Apart from the fact that, a ‘first time murderer’ is bound to be extremely nervous of committing such a crime, every other factor surrounding him would have to perfectly fall in place for him to execute the crime so succinctly.
In their conclusion, after re-enacting the journey, the podcast journalists and producers thought, even though the drive within 21 minutes was ‘doable,’ it would have to have taken place in perfect traffic conditions, perfect weather conditions, with no problems or hitches in Adnan’s plan and it would have had to happen if Hae and Adnan had driven out of the school at 2:15pm (right after classes without lingering) as opposed to the 2:25pm or later claimed by some witnesses.
Let us go further with the prosecution’s theory and imagine that everything surrounding Adnan’s alleged plan had fallen into place with no hitches. The thought that a 17 year old young man, who had never murdered anyone before, was able to carry out such a heinous and personal crime of strangulation in such a tight time horizon, with perfect precision, without getting scared, getting scratched by the victim or getting any part of the plan wrong still seems a little unconvincing.
While it is possible, it just doesn’t seem a natural assumption for every part of his plan to go as perfectly as the prosecution alleges. It doesn’t seem likely that he wouldn’t have gotten some of Hae’s DNA on him or left DNA evidence while he was strangling her. Unlike a gunshot or a knife stab, the act of strangulation, in itself, is one with the potential of demanding a certain degree of time and may not allow the precision that the prosecution claimed. For Hae to die from strangulation, Adnan would have had to exert enough pressure and hold her down long enough for her to stop breathing. He would have had to check to see that she was really dead. This would have taken some time and eaten into the 21minutes before the all-important 2:36pm call.
In addition, the prosecution claims, after Adnan made the phone call to Jay and Jay arrived at the Best-Buy car park to meet Adnan, the latter showed Jay the body of Hae in the trunk of her car. This, naturally, would mean, after strangling Hae, Adnan would have had to carry her dead body out of the car and bungle her into the boot.
Now taking into consideration that the murder was alleged to have taken place between 2.15pm and 2.36pm, in broad daylight, in a public car park, how feasible is it to presume that nobody saw Adnan throughout the whole plot? It really seems strange to say that Adnan planed to commit murder in broad daylight in the parking lot of a popular Best-Buy retail shop, then drove to the location with Hae, strangled her, carried her dead body out of the car and stuffed it into the boot of her car without anyone, any shopper, consumer or passerby, sighting him or Hae’s car.
The crime was supposed to happen on a weekday, a time when public locations, car parks, retail stores are filled with people going about their daily business, yet the prosecution was unable to produce any witness who saw Hae’s car in the Best-Buy car park or saw Adnan carry Hae’s dead body and stuff it in the boot of her car.
Furthermore, if Adnan gave Jay (the prosecution witness) his personal phone which the prosecution claims Adnan called at 2:36pm to inform Jay of the murder, then which phone did Adnan use to make that same alleged call?
Remember, the prosecution places Adnan at the car park of the Best-Buy department store at the specific time of 2:36pm, where he was supposed to have just strangled Hae to death. They insist that the call Adnan was supposed to have made came from the specific location of the Best-Buy retail store.
Taking this prosecution’s point into consideration and keeping in mind the burden of, ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that the Prosecution has to satisfy, it would be mandatory for proof to be admitted which categorically shows that Adnan was in possession of an alternative phone or used a phone within the premises that the prosecution place him in (the Best-Buy car park) to call Jay.
However, there has been conflicting accounts as to whether there was a pay phone at the parking lot of the Best-Buy retail store on January 13, 1999, the day and place the prosecution allege that Adnan strangled Hae. If it turns out that there was no phone within the vicinity of the Best-Buy which Adnan would have been able to get to within that stipulated 21minutes and the prosecution is unable to prove that he had access to another phone, which he used to make the call to Jay, the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ burden can’t be satisfied.
Unless the Prosecution can definitively show how Adnan is supposed to have made the alleged 2.36pm phone call and from which phone, then the prosecution can’t prove it’s case ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ at all. One must keep in mind that these events took place in 1999 and the process and access to have multiple mobile phones was not easy. It is the prosecution’s burden to prove the call was made from Adnan to Jay at 2:36pm and identify the specific phone he used to make the call. Given the importance of this call to the State’s case, if the prosecution is unable to prove how, when, where and on which device the call was made, then their burden cannot be satisfied.
No matter which way one looks at it, the timeline set by the prosecution and the 2:36pm call from the phone booth of Best-Buy is, at the very least, problematic for the States’ case. But since that was the timeline that the prosecution insisted on, if Adnan had a competent legal team, they would have been able to obliterate the State’s case with ease.
As the prosecution’s star witness, on whose testimony the prosecution wholly based its case, the credibility of Jay should have been above reproach. However, in the court documents, it shows that Jay had changed his story and his account of the events severally. In one account, Jay denied picking Adnan up at the car park, then it changed to him picking Adnan up. In another account, Jay recalls helping Adnan bury Hae’s body, then that changed to him merely watching Adnan bury her body while he stood by. In a different testimony, Jay claims to have helped take Hae’s body out of the boot of the car and then it changed to him not touching the body but only being shown the body by Adnan. In a different statement, Jay claims to have only seen the body of Hae in the trunk of the car outside his grandmother’s house.
Throughout the investigation and trial, Jay’s statements were consistently inconsistent. His different accounts of what happened on that day are so opposing, there is no way they could be reconciled. From the different versions of the account that Jay gave his friends and the police to the timing of the account that Jay gave during the trial, it’s astonishing that the jury were able to register Jay’s testimony as credible by any degree.
As the main witness, on whose version of events the prosecution based its case, the fact that Jay changed his testimony so often should have greatly diminished the weight that the court and jury attached to his testimony.
Then there was the curious business of the overindulgent plea deal that Jay got in the case. How Jay was able to sustain a plea deal where he was able to avoid any jail time despite the fact he pled guilty to accessory in first-degree murder is beyond belief.
But the curiosity with Jay goes beyond his ever changing testimony and ridiculously lenient plea deal, it goes to the point where one has to question how much he really knew about the murder. The fact that he was able to take the police to the location where Hae Min Lee’s car was during the investigation of her disappearance shows that he obviously knew some intimate detail about the crime. He knew too much to be completely bereft of knowledge concerning her disappearance. But, exactly how much was he really involved in the death of Hae Min Lee?
Jay’s girlfriend, Stephanie, the close friend whose birthday Adnan claims he gave Jay the use of his phone and car for, may hold more significance than one would have thought in this case. It turns out that Stephanie’s parents did not like Jay but liked Adnan. Some say that Jay may have been very jealous of Adnan as a result of this. Could that have played a part in shaping the testimony that Jay gave against Adnan? At the time of the crime and trial, we learn that Stephanie told police that Jay instructed her not to speak to Adnan. During his interrogation and cross-examination, Jay apparently mentioned his fear for the safety of Stephanie as a main reason for his inconsistency. Jay told the police and testified in court that he feared for Stephanie as Adnan threatened to hurt Stephanie or get her involved if Jay reported the murder of Hae to the authorities.
It will be very hard to get complete answers regarding Jay’s involvement and a possible Stephanie influence in this case, but it does make one wonder about this angle being a possible lead to what may have happened on that day and the some of the decisions that were made.
Nonetheless, had Adnan’s legal team been halfway competent, he should not have been convicted purely based on Jay’s inability to have one straight account or Jay’s possible motive to point the finger at him. Keeping in mind that the entirety of the State’s case and the skewered timeline presented in court is based on the evidence that Jay gives, had Jay’s evidence been dismissed, the State would have had no case.
If Jay changed his story so many times, how were the jury expected to determine which one of his stories was the truth? And if the jury didn’t know which version of Jay’s inconsistencies was true, then how was it possible to find Adnan guilty of murdering Hae ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ based on one of Jay’s accounts?
To summarize, in the submission of the prosecution: Hae left class at 2:15pm… Adnan immediately approached her and said, “Hae I need a lift, can you give me a lift?”… She agrees… He gets into her car… They race to the Best-Buy Shopping Complex and parked in the public car park… Then this 17 year old strangled her in the car… He then got out of the car and walked to the trunk of the car and opened it… He then went to the drivers’ side of the car and carried Hae out… He walked back to the boot carrying Hae… He placed her in the boot of the car and closed it… Then he went to make a phone call to Jay from some phone- all in a public setting… all within 21minutes… and with no witnesses?
I don’t know folks… Those series of events, as presented by the prosecution in the Adnan Syed murder trial, seem a little farfetched to me. If I was a jury member on this particular case, I’m not sure I would have been convinced of Adnan Syed’s guilt based on the sequence presented by the prosecution because of all the holes in the case. Had I been a jury member who was presented with the same case that the prosecution in his case did, I definitely would have found Adnan Syed… NOT GUILTY!
-There is so much more to discuss and dispel in the case of the prosecution in this matter, including; a possible lack of motive because Adnan and Hae remained on friendly terms with no animosity after their breakup, good character evidence which suggests that Adnan was not a violent or dangerous person, and an alibi where, Asia McClain, a classmate of Adnan’s whose claim that she was with him in the school library during the time he is accused of murdering Hae was ignored and not admitted in court. According to the state’s timeline, Asia McClain’s testimony would have made it impossible for Adnan to kill Hae on January 13, 1999 at 2:36pm.
That and so many other points of discussion convince me that Adnan Syed should not have been found guilty and convicted for the murder of Hae Min Lee.
However, on the other side of the gauntlet, there are issues that raise doubt in my mind about the defense of Adnan Syed himself, which prevent me from being completely convinced that he is telling the whole truth about the events that happened on that day and about some actions that may have been connected to the murder of Hae Min Lee.
I hope you have been able to listen to ‘Serial Podcast’ on the links provided above so that you can have a better understanding of my legal analysis and form your own verdict of the case, as a contribution to the global discussion that is presently going on during the Post Conviction Appeal phase of Adnan Syed’s conviction.
After listening to the Podcast, what is your opinion? Do you think Adnan Syed killed Hae Min Lee or do you think he is an innocent victim of the system? Despite the fact that the evidence presented should not have been enough to convict him, do you think the prosecution actually still got it right and he is in actual fact guilty? Perhaps you may think, some kind of confrontation with Hae was planned by Adnan, which got out of hand leading to her murder? Do you think his guilty verdict was the direct consequence of a grossly incompetent legal team and a prejudiced Jury or do you see Adnan Syed as a cruel, smart and cunning master manipulator who thought he could plan and get away with the murder of Hae Min Lee? What are the reasons that have brought you to your conclusion?
Good, Bad, innocent, guilty, free or incarcerated, join me next week, when I will disclose the final part of my legal analysis of ‘Serial Podcast’ in the Hae Min Lee murder mystery and the Adnan Syed case.
To be continued…
*There are several online global discussion groups on this case presently going on which you can view, contribute to and join. Be part of the discussion. Some relevant Websites and Twitter handles for the case:
www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/
www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_(podcast)
Twitter- @rabiasquared, @serial, @ThisAmerLife
I invite you to:
Follow me on Twitter- @hanneymusawa
Visit my Website- www.hanneymusawa.com
Like my Facebook- www.facebook.com/hannatu.musawa
Text *(STRICTLY SMS REFERRING TO ARTICLES ONLY): 08116759753
Views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of TheCable.
Add a comment
