HBO to Air Documentary About ‘Serial’ Star Adnan Syed

HBO and Sky are behind the documentary The Case Against Adnan Syed, a four-hour documentary series about the young man who was the focus of the first season of the podcast Serial. Amy Berg will direct.

In 1999, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee was murdered in Baltimore, and Syed, her ex-boyfriend, was convicted of the crime.

In production since 2015, The Case Against Adnan Syed re-examines the events leading up to Hae Min Lee’s disappearance. “Presenting new discoveries, as well as groundbreaking revelations that challenge the state’s case, and featuring exclusive access to Syed, the defense team, the Syed family, friends and teachers of Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed, and members of City of Baltimore law enforcement, the series traces how the rush to justice and Syed’s conviction in 2000 raised more questions than answers about what happened to Hae Min Lee, underscoring the instability of memory and conflicting eyewitnesses,” says HBO.

In June 2016, a judge vacated Syed's conviction and granted him a new trial after new evidence challenged the reliability of cellphone data linking Syed to the crime scene, and a long-awaited alibi witness had her day in court.

Working Title TV, NBCUniversal International Studios and Instinct Productions are producing and NBCUniversal International Distribution is distributing. Executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Jemima Khan for Instinct Productions and Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan and Andrew Stearn for Working Title TV.

HBO did not say when the film will air.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.