Adnan Syed has shed some light on his encounters with Serial podcast host Sarah Koenig, whose documentation of Syed's trial captivated the world in 2014.

The first season of the popular series followed the investigation surrounding the murder of Syed's ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999 and now, in an extract from his new book published in The Sunday Times, Syed has opened up about his time with Koenig.

During the extract, Syed explains that Koenig set the entire tone for his experience of appearing in the podcast from one of the first questions she ever asked him, questioning if he was reading the Koran "to make the judge think [he] was religious".

"That triggered something in me," he wrote, "a hopeless feeling that I would never be able to convince her I was innocent".

He added: "I have to prove to Ms Koenig that I am innocent, which I cannot do [...] And that is to be in the untenable position of having to prove to someone that I did not do something that I did not do, and no-one proved that I did it anyway."

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Syed continued to document his thoughts during his meetings with Koenig for the podcast, stressing that he thought that any conclusions made by her had nothing to do with him and their meetings.

"I prayed that she would come to learn those things about my case. And she did," he wrote.

"She even learnt some things that I did not know. There was nothing huge, no smoking gun, but they are things that I believe strengthen my claims of innocence.

"Facts and evidence that should exist had I truly committed this crime: they were not there. And I was grateful for that. She arrived at all her conclusions on her own. It had nothing to do with me.

"At least, I thought so up until the day when I asked her about what made her decide to do the story. She responded that it was because of me, and that it seemed like I was a good person."

According to Syed, this is a conclusion that he heard regularly, and hearing it from Koenig during her investigation into his case brought a lot of emotions up to the surface.

"I got pretty upset when she said that," he remembered. "And I realise this all may sound incredibly ridiculous, or even make me sound crazy — and maybe I am crazy — but it was so frustrating because I'm just tired of hearing people say similar things to me.

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"That they do not know why I am in prison, because I am such a nice guy. Guards say it, other prisoners say it. I just wish someone would say it's because of the faulty evidence, and not because of me."

He went on to say: "Can you imagine what it's like to never be able to be intuitive about the most important thing in your life?

"I could never just talk about my case with Ms Koenig. I had to always analyse and evaluate every response I gave her, because I felt she had a general disposition to believe I was never telling the truth."

The Hae Min Lee murder trial was the subject of Serial's landmark first season. For its second season, Sarah Koenig and her team investigated accused US military deserter and former Taliban prisoner Sgt Bowe Bergdahl.

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