Serial revisits season one for Adnan Syed’s new hearing

The team behind the popular podcast Serial is keeping busy, to say the least. Even as season 2 gets underway, and expands, producers Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis found time to revisit season 1’s case as Adnan Syed headed back to court for a new hearing. The two are reporting each day’s events in the form of short update episodes, the first of which was released on Thursday morning.

“This week I’m going to do something I haven’t done before, which is duck back into Adnan Syed’s case for a few days, to report on a court proceeding that’s happening in Baltimore,” said host Sarah Koenig of the update episodes, according to THR. The hearing will span three days and show Syed’s attorney introducing new evidence that could potentially lead to a retrial.

Season 1 examined the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a high school student who had dated Syed. He was arrested after she went missing, and he was ultimately convicted of the crime. Now 35, Syed is serving a life sentence, but his attorney, Justin Brown, is arguing that Syed’s case was mishandled by the previous defense attorney and that a potential key witness, Asia McClain, was never contacted.

During season 1 of Serial, Koenig had spoken with McClain, so when McClain testified on February 3, she mentioned the podcast. “Serial was a part of her testimony so that was also very strange, a little bit surreal, like ‘Is this happening right now?’ moment,” said Koenig of the reference.

As part of her testimony, McClain maintained that she had seen Syed in the library shortly after 2:15 p.m. on January 13, 1999, which was not long before Lee was last seen. “I felt for justice to be served, we should put all of the information on the table,” said McClain.

Koenig and Chivvis will continue to recap the hearing and post updates on Serial‘s website as well as on iTunes, Pandora, and other podcast apps.

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Stephanie Topacio Long