Alibi witness in ‘Serial’ podcast murder case says prosecutor misled her

An alibi witness for a convicted murderer profiled in the public radio podcast Serial testified Wednesday that a prosecutor misled her about the importance of her evidence and that he later gave a deceptive account of their conversation when he testified about it.

Asia McClain, now known as Asia Chapman, testified Wednesday during a hearing for Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murder and is seeking a new trial in a case that was spotlighted by the popular podcast.

Chapman has said she saw Syed in a library within the time when prosecutors contend he was killing his high school girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in 1999. But McClain was never contacted by Syed’s attorney to testify at his trial.

Chapman told the court that years after Syed was convicted, Syed’s defense attorney, who was working on an appeal, visited her at her home and left a business card. She called then-prosecutor Kevin Urick because she figured he’d be less biased than the defence attorney.

During their 34-minute phone conversation, Chapman said she took detailed notes and Urick told her that Syed “killed that girl”.

“I walked away feeling like [the defence] was trying to manipulate the court to get him in front of a judge,” Chapman testified, adding that Urick convinced her that Syed “was 100 per cent guilty, and it was a waste of my time to get involved”.

But she says Urick later testified at Syed’s first post-conviction hearing that his phone call with her lasted only five minutes, and said that she’d told him that her affidavit about having seen Syed was false.