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By then the lower court had read some charges—preaching a message different from the Qur'an, "building" a church—but only hinted at the blasphemy charge. Magdangal would learn of the blasphemy verdict before he knew the charge itself: a muttawa'in officer interrogating him, Lt. Bader Alyaya, said his case had become "very serious" and that he was going to be hanged.

"He motioned around his neck like a noose, and then he pulled the noose above his head in a motion with his hand," he recalls. "I knew that people guilty of blasphemy are hanged to death for three days, to send a strong warning to the Muslims not to turn to another religion, and for Christians to not try to reach the Muslims."

Magdangal describes a sensation of fire or lightning striking him in the chest. "It felt like there was something within me that was getting ready to explode, and as I opened my mouth, the words came out: 'I shall not die but live and declare the works of my Lord, for no weapon formed against me shall prosper, for greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world,' " Magdangal says. "That's all I said. And then I bent over, and I wept, and I wept, and I wept."

Normally Saudi authorities do not tell the condemned of their sentence until the day of their execution, so as to forestall appeals and protests, Magdangal says. Sometimes the authorities go the extra step of leading prisoners to believe they are being released just before executing them.

Magdangal knew only that the Philippine embassy had filed protests of his detention, which went unheeded, though soon Amnesty International also was monitoring his case. As executive secretary to the Saudi director of Defense and Civil Aviation, Magdangal had close friends high in the Saudi government, including members of the royal family—and even in the muttawa'in—who only gradually had become aware of his arrest. Muttawa'in officers warned each of Magdangal's high-level friends to stop advocating for him.

The threats worked. But a general secretly told Magdangal's wife to inform Fidel Ramos, then-president of the Philippines, that the case had become "very serious."

"The reality is that in Saudi Arabia the majority of the people, even those in the government, are not aware that the Muslim clerics are persecuting Christians," Magdangal says. "Even among the Muslim clerics, not all of them are aware that some of their colleagues are persecuting Christians."

Fresh off victory from Saudi soil in the Gulf War, the U.S. Congress and the White House joined with human-rights organizations to appeal for Magdangal's life—unbeknownst to him. By December 23 he had settled in his heart that he was going to be executed.

"I was heavily burdened for my wife and my daughter," he says. "I pictured myself hanging between heaven and earth, and I said to the Lord, 'I would ask you to order the Devil himself to deliver my spirit to the gates of heaven. And when I take my first step inside the gates, before you separate me from the evil, give me the privilege to strike the Devil right in his face.' "

Magdangal then prayed that if he were spared, he would be a voice for the persecuted. Shortly before midnight, the prison commander arrived with orders to deport Magdangal. "Even at that point, from the prison to the airport, I was very terrified because the two officers with me were interrupted on their radio by Muslim clerics who were yelling, fighting my release, and telling them to divert the car and bring it somewhere else to kill me," he says.

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July 8 2002, Vol. 46, No. 8