A Short Course In Miracles

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The case against him had its troubles too. It was likely to be overshadowed by testimony about how Lindh's confessions may have been coerced by the humiliating conditions of his military confinement--bound, blindfolded, strapped to a stretcher and placed inside a steel container. So on July 12, when Brosnahan and his team came to the courthouse in Alexandria for pretrial motions, prosecutors asked for a meeting to discuss ways of avoiding a trial. Later, Brosnahan learned that U.S. Attorneys Paul McNulty and Randy Bellows had already paved the way for a deal.

First, they had taken the idea to Michael Chertoff, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of prosecutions, who brought the matter to his boss, John Ashcroft. With the Attorney General's approval, the prosecutors discussed a possible deal with officials at the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among the most vocal of Lindh's early critics. Rumsfeld agreed to the idea of a plea. Next, a Justice Department lawyer spoke to White House counsel Al Gonzalez, who briefed President Bush. But while the top officials of the U.S. government were ready to strike a deal, Lindh was not. Brosnahan says his client wanted assurances that he could continue his Islamic studies in prison and be given space for the five daily prayers required by his faith.

Pentagon officials, following Rumsfeld's orders, insisted that Lindh retract his claim of being mistreated by the military. Brosnahan says his client never felt he was intentionally abused by guards, though several took snapshots of one another next to his bound form. Defense lawyers wanted the charges alleging ties to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups dropped. Says Brosnahan: "We were not going to sign anything that he was a terrorist."

It would take 57 hours of back-and-forth phone calls and faxes between defense lawyers and prosecutors, but they hammered out the details by 1:30 a.m. on July 15. Amid the contentious negotiations, his lawyers say, Lindh seemed free of worry. During talks with Hassan in the jail each week, Lindh seemed to have accepted his destiny. "No one can ever hurt me," Lindh recently told him, quoting a Muslim scholar. "If they imprison me, I can devote my time to worship. If they exile me, that is an opportunity to see new lands of God. If they kill me, then they make a martyr of me."

In letters to his mentor Ebrahim Nana, who runs the Mill Valley, Calif., mosque where Lindh converted to Islam, Lindh has written of his dreams about building Islamic schools so American children would not have to go abroad to study. For now, he will recite a special prison prayer Nana has given him: "Our Lord, take us out of this town whose people are oppressors and raise for us from yourself one who will protect us." Says Nana: "Allah has kept him alive for a purpose."

--With reporting by Hilary Hylton/Mill Valley, Siobhan Morrissey/Alexandria, Elaine Shannon and Mark Thompson/Washington and Frank Sikora/Birmingham