Dateline NBC - The Trap

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

Kate Snow interviews former journalist Amanda Lindhout and the undercover agent who spearheaded the international manhunt for the person responsible for her 2008 kidnapping and torture in Somalia. Originally aired on NBC on January 13, 2019.

I was tied up and tortured. These people almost murdered me. I was terrified. A mother just fighting for her child. That's universal. She survived a harrowing hostage ordeal in one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Tonight, they have brought me out to kill

me. Then, from across the world, her kidnapper found her again. He reached out to me on Facebook. Did your heart stop? It was so scary that he could find me. Tonight, for the first time, she shares her dramatic new story, how she helps secret agents hunt down her captor. This all plays like a Tom Clancy thriller. Absolutely. The setting, a perfect island paradise. The plot, a daring undercover sting. You were supposed to get someone. Yes.

Where'd you take it? 10,000. We didn't think it would work. Face-to-face to dig it? Ten times. We didn't think it would work. Face to face with her kidnapper at last. I just broke down. It's still hard for you. This is real life, like pain.

Would she get justice? I got the courage in that moment. Then I said I'm ready. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Kate Snow with The Trap. Mom? Amanda. Amanda, I love you. Imagine being the mother on the other end of this call.

If you guys don't pay $1 million for me by one week. They will kill me, okay? Your daughter, a world away, in the hands of kidnappers. Amanda. Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. Both mother and daughter traumatized in their own ways by a callous captor. Don't waste our time. Don't waste your time. Understand? I understand. Their stories are intertwined.

Amanda Lindhout. My head is pulled back, and then there was a serrated knife. And her mother, Lorinda Stewart. Did you keep it together? I did. I had to be strong for her. Driven by strength, courage, and endurance, these women would not only survive this ordeal, but their determination in a completely new chapter of their story would ultimately lead

them to triumph over one of the men who had terrorized them so brutally. And it would take an elaborate international sting. It sounds like something out of a movie. It does. We always refer to this operation as the Hail Mary play. But before all of that, this story begins in a small town in western Canada, where a young woman named Amanda Lindhout yearned for a world beyond her hometown. One constant was that I wanted to be a world traveler, that I wanted to go to every country in the world. Amanda began to realize her dreams of seeing the world in the 90s. At 19, she was off to Venezuela. We're driving in the back of a pickup truck away from the village of El Poqui back to the town of Santa Elena.

The whole world was wide open to me at that time. So wide open, she kept moving, kept pushing forward. Going from India to Pakistan, it did feel like a big deal to me. It was something I really wanted to do, and then I did it. And Afghanistan is right next door. Mom Lorinda grew concerned, especially as her daughter trekked into active war zones. She tried to talk Amanda out of those trips, but she says her daughter was headstrong.

And the more Amanda traveled, the more she began to see a path to something else. She thought, wow, you know, I would love to write about the people that I'm meeting. She resolved to turn her wanderlust into a journalism career. This is Amanda Lintout, Press TV, Baghdad. She wanted to get more experience, but also cover stories she cared about. You need to get out there and go somewhere where you can get a break.

I'm also starting to look like a little bit further out onto the horizon. How far? One of the bit further out onto the horizon. How far? One of the most dangerous places in the world. What other stories are out there that I feel passionate about? At the top of my list was Somalia. Amanda knew she had to tell her mother, Lorinda, about her plans.

And you're thinking what? I would really rather she didn't go. Do you think maybe you were, to use your mom's word, a little headstrong? Yeah, I was headstrong. And I don't think that I had spent enough time thinking about what would happen if something did go wrong. Soon enough, she would find out just how wrong things could go. On the plane into Mogadishu, she remembers a fellow passenger turning to her and her colleague, Nigel Brennan, with a stern warning.

He said to me, your head, your head alone, is worth half a million dollars in Mogadishu. Be careful. As Amanda left the airport, the capital city was chaotic. Back at home, Amanda's mother, Lorinda,

worried about her daughter. I just made sure every time I talked to her that I told her I loved her. Amanda managed to tamp down her nervousness and got to work. On her third day in Somalia, she was in a car with Nigel, chasing a story. The vehicle started to slow down and I looked up. About a dozen armed men were emerging from where they had been hidden, all of them with AK-47s. Next thing I knew, my door was pulled open and then I found myself lying face down in the dirt, spread eagle with a gun held to the back of my head. Terrifying.

I asked, is this about money? And he said to me, uh, it might be something like that. All the way back in Canada, her mother, Lorinda, stopped hearing from her daughter. She began to fear the worst. She didn't want to be right, but she knew kidnappings were common in Somalia. You must have felt so helpless. I felt like we were so far apart and

we didn't know where our daughter was. I think I would have been a collapsed puddle on the floor. Well, I knew I couldn't. I couldn't. Lorinda reached out to Canadian officials who told her this was, in fact, a kidnapping by Islamic rebels, and they scrambled to set up a recording system in case the kidnappers called. The next morning, my cell phone rang, and it was Adam, who was negotiator for the kidnappers. Canadian investigators had Lorinda lead the negotiations. But what she couldn't know then was just how much terror the man who called himself Adam would bring into her life. There are two options.

Only to say, I don't want to pay a money. Otherwise, to pay one million for your daughter. When this Adam called Lorinda on day four, he had a surprise. Okay, Lorinda. Yes. Talk to your daughter. Amanda? Mom?

Amanda, I love you, sweetheart. Proof that Amanda was alive. After the first couple weeks, we realized that this might go on for longer than we hoped. On the other side of the globe, Amanda couldn't know how long she'd be held, but feared the worst. I was the only female in a group of about 16 men, so there was a lot of scary thoughts. When we come back, the danger and terror escalate. Tonight, they have brought me out to kill me. Amanda, Amanda, stay strong.

Stay strong, hon. And later, a new twist. You're an undercover agent. Correct. Can Amanda help turn the tables on her captor? My heart started pounding and I fell to my knees and I started crying. Nearly a month after being kidnapped,

one morning the captors came for Amanda and her colleague Nigel. They were taken out of their room and marched outside. There he was, the man known as Adam. We were terrified, and a small video camera was brought out, and we were told to beg for our lives. September 17th, 2008, Lorinda turned on the TV in Canada and saw this, a hostage video on Al Jazeera.

She was crushed. It was the first time she had seen Amanda and she didn't look good. What are you feeling as you watch it? I just want to bring her home. Never, never let her go. Weeks turned to months, and then their captors separated Amanda and Nigel.

Why was that so important? That day and the days that followed were among the very, very worst because suddenly I'm alone with my own thoughts and my mind. Amanda's mind ran wild. She feared she would be raped. Then one day a captor entered her room. It turns out your fears were justified. He did cross that line and my worst fears were realized. And my whole experience in captivity really changed. Somehow she held on. And then one night, Amanda was jostled awake and driven out into the desert alone. What happened next was terrifying. They brought me over to an acacia tree. They had me kneel. My head is pulled back and then there was a serrated knife.

The ruthless kidnappers told a desperate Amanda she only had three minutes to plead for her life with her traumatized mother on the other end of the call. If you guys don't pay one million dollars for me by one week, they will kill me, okay? Tonight, they have brought me out to kill me. Amanda, Amanda, stay strong, stay strong, hon. That phone call definitely made it harder not to let my imagination go. Did you keep it together? I just felt like I had to.

That I had to be strong for her. Canada does not pay ransom to kidnappers, so if Lorinda wanted to buy Amanda's freedom, she was on her own. A world away in Somalia, Amanda and Nigel, locked in separate

rooms, had discovered something. If they each stood at their windows, they could hear each other. They began to hatch a plan. Nigel realized that we might have a chance to escape out that bathroom window, which at first seemed like an impossible idea. Each time they used the bathroom,

they chipped away at the mortar holding the bricks together, blocking the window. Then they would replace the loose bricks, until one day the hole was big enough, and they made a break for it. From the moment that I dropped down out of that bathroom window and hit the sound below, I knew that it was bad.

They sprinted for a mosque, the one place where they thought they'd be safe. Right before we stepped in, I looked back and I saw one of our young captors. Inside the mosque, one person stepped forward to try and help Amanda, someone she'll never forget. It was the first woman that I had seen in about five months. And when she hugged me and held on to me, it was the first time in those five months that I felt something akin to being safe. That feeling would be fleeting. I just clung on to her and I started pouring out my heart to this woman and she began pleading with my captors to let me go. Her pleas were ignored.

The kidnappers circled Amanda, guns drawn, and began dragging her out of the mosque. That woman threw herself on top of me and was drug partway across the floor with me until she couldn't hang on anymore. And right before they pulled me out the door of the mosque, I looked back and I saw her on the floor. She had tears pouring down her face, and she still had her hands outstretched to help me. You don't know whatever happened to that woman?

No, I don't. After the escape attempt, Adam and the gang clearly grew frustrated, and Adam took it out on Lorinda. If I had the money, I would pay you. We are not playing games. It's you that are playing games. The escape attempt made things much worse for Amanda. They tie your arms and your legs and pull your body up by ropes and leave you. Yeah, it's very hard for me to go back to that and think about what happened to me during those three days. After that, Adam forced her onto the phone again. It's one of the hardest calls to listen to.

Amanda. Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, listen to me, please. Please listen, okay? Amanda. Mom needs to save a million dollars now because they've started to torture me. The calls were agonizing. The families of both Amanda and Nigel, desperate to have their children home, eventually hired a private security company to help.

Months went by, and one night, Amanda's captors came to her room. They marched me outside and then had me sit down on the cement, and they produced a small saw and began sawing through the chains that had been on my ankles for 10 months. Amanda and Nigel hadn't seen each other for months, but now they were thrown into the backseat of a car and driven into the dark Somali night. We're both crying.

Guns surround this car that we're in. And I think this is it. Then a man appeared at the car's window. He says to me, why are you crying? Here, talk to your mother. And she said to me, Amanda, you're free. Amanda's mother, Lorinda, had never stopped negotiating, and Adam had agreed to accept $680,000 for both Amanda and Nigel. The captives flew out of Somalia and landed in Nairobi, Kenya. They were whisked away to a hospital. Mother and daughter finally reunited.

I barely recognized her. It was relief, it was joy, and it was heartache to see her like that. I would not be here now if it was not for my mother. My mom gave me life and she saved my life. Amanda Lindhout was finally safe back with her family, but Adam, the one who tormented them so much, wasn't finished with them yet. A single word from him would bring it all back. Coming up. Did your heart stop? It was so scary that he could find me. A Facebook message from across the world and a daring undercover plan to catch a kidnapper. It sounds like something out of a movie.

We didn't think it would work. When Dateline continues. Amanda Lindhout was back home in Canada, struggling to move beyond the horrific events in Somalia and trying to cope with the idea that the captors who so terrorized her might never be brought to justice. And as Amanda tried to get her life back on track, there was an interruption. I had enrolled in a university program in eastern Canada and it was during a break between classes. I was checking my emails and I saw that I had received a Facebook message. One word. Hello. It was from the last person she ever wanted to hear from.

It was a message from Adam. Did your heart stop? It was so scary that he could find me even though I was safe and across the world and was at home, it was really disarming. That one simple message was about to launch a new and dangerous chapter of her story. The messages didn't stop there. Lorinda heard from Adam, too. But her communication with him extended beyond hello. Out of the blue, you get this Facebook message from Adam.

It must have been shocking. It was a total shock. It was kind of terrifying, too, because it just felt like he was right in my space again. Adam taunted Lorinda. He said he was reaching out because he had journals Amanda had written in captivity, deeply personal writing that had helped her get through it all. What were you thinking when you replied back? I was hoping that I could get him to send Amanda's journals. But if Lorinda wanted those precious journals,

Adam said she'd have to pay. For Lorinda, it was outrageous. Her daughter's kidnapper had tracked her down with more demands for cash. That's when she reached out once again to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In Ottawa, a staff sergeant named Larry Laron got a call from his bosses. We become aware that Adam's been in touch with her. And at that point, my team was engaged to pursue that to the full extent.

A 30-year veteran, he ran priority undercover projects for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His mission? Find Adam, if that was even his name. He reaches out on Facebook, which means you have his Facebook address, right? We do. You kind of know where he is. We know he's in Somalia. Right. We know, we suspect that he's using an alias.

So the principal course of action at that point is, who is Adam? And so to do that, we have to engage him directly through an undercover operation. An undercover agent. Correct. Is going to start trying to engage him directly through an undercover operation. An undercover agent? Correct. Is going to start trying to get in touch with Adam? Yes. That's where this man comes in. He's a Canadian investigator who we've agreed to refer to by his cover name, A.K.

Right off the top, I just want to acknowledge, we're hiding your identity. We've changed your look. Yes. That's because you're an undercover agent. Correct. A.K. reached's because you're an undercover agent. Correct. AK reached out to Adam, first by phone. The undercover agent told him he was a media consultant for Amanda's family. Amanda didn't know about AK or what he was doing.

All she knew was that Adam's Facebook messages had triggered some kind of investigation. I didn't really know what was going on. I knew that there was the hope to catch this guy. A.K. and Adam communicated on and off for years. It was slow work, but A.K. knew pushing too hard could crater the operation, and patience paid off. One day I received an email from him, which was a scan, scanned copies of 16 letters. They looked like letters, but they were actually pages ripped from Amanda's journals. Adam had originally asked for thousands of dollars for them. But now?

I call him up and I ask him about this. And he says, yeah, I've sent you the letters. I don't need any money for that. Our relationship had evolved to the point where he trusts me enough now. And then Adam shared a new idea. He told AK he was a scholar and wanted to write a book, A History of Somalia. As implausible as that sounds, to investigators, it was an unexpected gift, a way to get Adam on the hook. You're telling a kidnapper who you believe was involved in this really major kidnapping and a lot of crimes that you're going to help him publish a

book. Yes. It sounds like something out of a movie. It does. We always refer to this operation as the Hail Mary play. We didn't think it would work. And as it was continuing, we were surprised ourselves. You didn't think he would actually say, yeah, I really want to write a book? No. And I'm going to pursue this with you. No. He'd convinced himself that he wanted to write this book and that he was able to write this book. That's your in.

That's our in. We knew we wanted to talk to him. And we looked and we thought, okay, how are we going to move this forward? How are we going to gather evidence? Because ultimately, that's our goal. Gathering the evidence and maybe one day bringing him to justice. Money, fame, to Amanda, it was just the kind of bait that could trap her kidnapper. It totally fits in line with what I knew of this man. He struck me as the kind of guy whose

ego was so big. Of course, if somebody told him he's capable of writing a book, he would think that. The Hail Mary play was in motion, but investigators knew they needed more than phone calls and emails. Their next move? Get Adam to meet in person. Coming up. We need to see him. We need to see him to identify him fully. A meeting in a perfect island paradise. Undercover agent and unsuspecting kidnapper.

Dangerously face-to-face. Can you believe he's saying all this? It was amazing. As the hunt for her kidnapper progressed, Amanda continued to recover and heal. Part of that journey included sharing her story with the world. Four years after being freed, she released her memoir, A House in the Sky. It became a bestseller. In my own life, friends, family, book club people say to me, have you read this book? You've reached a lot of people.

Most people will never be kidnapped. But people know pain and loss and adversity that they don't think that they can get through. And so what I feel people find in the pages is, you know, inspiration and a reminder that they are strong too. Her strength would become crucial to the operation now underway. Investigators knew they had her kidnapper, Adam, on the hook. They also knew that in order to get justice for Amanda, they needed more than long-distance conversations. We need to see him.

We need to see him to identify him fully. Whose idea was it to meet face-to-face? It was his idea. Imagine the opportunity to meet with one of Amanda's kidnappers face-to-face. But where in the world to do it? Somalia? Too dangerous. Canada? Too risky. How about paradise?

Mauritius, four hours away from the kidnappers' homeland of Somalia, this island gem with its pristine beaches, crystal clear water, beautiful mountain vistas, and luxury resorts. A.K. convinced the kidnapper that he would serve as his book agent and invited Adam here to talk about the project.

Adam lives in Mogadishu, in a really difficult place to live, and you're bringing him to a place where Europeans come on vacation. I think what it did do, though, was it solidified my status as an international business person. Somebody who had the means to get him what he wanted which was essentially a book contract. Adam took the bait. Here he is in Mauritius with AK. Did you ever get nervous that Adam was figuring out who you were? I did initially and then we're walking around the resort and he turned to me and he said what did you think of me? And so I buttered him up a bit. I said, your English was great. You've come a long way from such humble beginnings.

And I turned it back on him and I said, what did you think of me? And he said, first, I thought you were intelligent. But now, now we are brothers. Against a backdrop of serene stillness and beauty, the brothers continued to talk and even relax. They each had something to gain in this face-to-face meeting. He had one objective, getting that book deal. He did. And it seemed like you had one objective. Oh, we had, definitely we had one objective.

The objective was to see him confirm that Adam was indeed the man who had terrorized Amanda and Lorinda. Next, they wanted him to admit his involvement in the kidnapping. That's where the phony book deal came in. We knew that he was interested in writing a book. We brought props, and one of them was a book cover that we had designed. And I was going to sign a contract with him that laid out his and my relationship vis-a-vis the publisher. The contract had a trap buried in it. Adam would have to disclose any wrongdoing in his past.

It had a special paragraph in it that we had inserted. A disclosure paragraph to encourage him to tell us his story. He signed, and incredibly, he told told his story including details of his involvement in the kidnapping. Can you believe he's saying all this? In my head I was dancing. It was amazing. You couldn't ask for better evidence. He even described his role in one of Amanda's worst days, that hostage video on Al Jazeera. I showed him a video that had aired on Al Jazeera television, and he pointed to himself as if he was really, really proud of this. He said, I'm the one that shot that video.

Amanda vividly remembers that video and Adam that day. Adam was now manning this and setting the stage for this video. I would say there was a great deal of excitement among all of them that they were going to be doing this little video and, you know, in their minds, surely getting attention and money. In Mauritius, investigators accomplished two big things. They'd identified Adam as the kidnapper and got him to admit his crimes. But after all that work, it still wasn't enough to arrest Adam.

Mauritian law prohibited AK from recording the confession. So you have no video or audio of what he's saying? No. Correct. Investigators wanted to have the strongest evidence they could against Adam in order to prosecute him under Canadian law. You're leaving Mauritius with a success, but you need more. Yeah, we do. How did you feel when you left here?

Conflicted. You're leaving him, watching him go back to Somalia. Yeah, it was, as investigators, we'd succeeded in getting the evidence, we'd succeeded in getting the identity, but we had to let him go. It was like a catch and release program. In order to catch Adam and bring him to justice, they were hoping they could lure him even farther from home, a place where they could control the setting, all the way to Canada. But how on earth would they convince Adam to do that? And how long would it take? While you want justice, this is dragging on for years.

And as the years passed, I started to think the likelihood of that would diminish. Coming up, investigators set a trap. I'm a spokesman. I'm an intelligent person, educated person. It played out like a movie. I answered the phone, and my heart started pounding. When Dateline continues. Amanda Lindhout knew investigators were doing their best to bring her kidnapper to justice, and she did her best to help them.

Every couple of months, I would have in-person visits with the RCMP. And during these meetings, they could never tell me very much, but enough to give me at least a little bit of confidence that they might be able to pull this off. AK and his team considered the undercover operation in Mauritius a success, but it wasn't enough. They wanted to get Amanda's kidnapper to confess his crimes on Canadian soil. Why did you need him to go to Canada? We didn't want him to be arrested overseas so we wanted him in the country so we could deal with him in the most efficient way possible. In order to grab Adam in Canada they had to get him there. AK truly had to convince him the fake

book deal was real. So he thinks you are his book agent? I'm his book agent. So we had now got to the point where he was going to meet the publisher. So it was my job then to send him a plane ticket, which is difficult to do if you want to fly somebody out of Somalia. Difficult would be an understatement, as it turned out. You're going to bring an international kidnapper into Canada. Correct. That doesn't sound easy.

Well, the dichotomy of it is that we're usually in the business of keeping terrorists outside the country. Coordinating and planning an itinerary for a kidnapper would take time and threaten the operation. Once again, AK played the long game. I kept on putting him off, saying we will be meeting with the publisher soon. And then at one point, I had to fake a heart attack. I'm sorry, you had to fake a heart attack? I faked a heart attack. And that was the way we were able to put him off for a while.

Yeah, in real life you were actually doing other cases. Yes. Finally, after years of hard work and delays for Amanda and her mother, everything was in place and Adam was on a plane to Canada. He arrives at the airport in Ottawa and he comes in and there's big hugs and we sit down and we talk about the impending book deal, the publishing deal that is about to be signed. Adam was looking forward to a different kind of future.

Little did he know that is precisely what he would get out of this deal. I go into the room with Adam first. We have a boardroom set up for our meeting. And then the book publisher arrives, knocks on the door, comes on in. Him and I are allegedly old friends. This is Mike Stark. Nice to meet you. You're actually both undercover agents? Both undercover agents.

And then we have a bit of chit-chat, and then we sit down and we go over the contract. And Adam, as we had done in Mauritius, he goes over everything that he'd done. So you would be the negotiator between the people who had Amanda and Angel, and who else? And I told Lorinda the accepted thing. Right.

I'm a spokesman. Right. I'm an intelligent person, educated person. It played out like a movie. It was excellent. He's actually confessing to you his crimes. Yes. So after the three months, then, you, but as far as I understand it,

from what Lorinda and Amanda have told me, you were still the person on the phone. Yes, I woke him. I want to get the benefit. Right. You were supposed to get someone. Yes. Do you know how supposed to get someone. Yes. Do you know how much? I don't know.

But I was expecting more than they gave me. What did they give you? 10,000. After that meeting, you walk out. Yes. We signed the contract. Everybody's very happy. We were walking out because I had told him we were going for a tour of Ottawa. But that didn't happen.

You were both arrested. You're arrested too because you're still undercover. Yeah. Uniformed police handcuffed us both. Adam must have been totally shocked. He was. You could see in his face that he was clearly thrown by this. And I had to play up, you know, get your hands off my client. What are you doing here? This is ridiculous. And they handcuffed us both, let us off in different directions. I went for a beer, he went to jail. It had been seven years since Amanda Lindhout had been chained in a squalid cell in Somalia,

terrorized and tortured by her kidnappers for 460 days. Now, Adam was in chains himself. Amanda was home when she got the news. I answered the phone and I was home alone and my heart started pounding and he said, we've arrested Adam. And I fell to my knees and I started crying. And the next day I woke up, and it was my 34th birthday, and on the front page of every newspaper in Canada was his face, a face that I hadn't seen in over five years. I came in right after, and she was crying,

and I think she was saying, they got him, they got him, got him they got Adam and what were your feelings I was crying and I couldn't even speak and immediately my mind went to well there's going to be a trial and I will have to testify in that trial and the weight of that and what that really meant to me and would mean to my life became real. Coming up, face-to-face with her captor at last. She was crying. She was upset. I was so afraid to see this man again.

What would happen inside that courtroom? I wondered if I could do it. As unlikely as it may have seemed, authorities had their man in the kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout, and they got him in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced Adam's capture to the world. This arrest is a testament to the investigative team's perseverance, and I wish to thank them for their excellent work. With the investigation over, it would now be up to Amanda herself to keep Adam behind bars. It would take everything she had to do it. I'm going to have to testify, and I'm going to have to face this man in court.

You're going to have to see him. Yeah. Before that could happen, Amanda would have to assist the prosecution team in building its case against the kidnapper. A group of us would meet every couple of months for two and a half years. Wow. It's exhausting. It was exhausting. This was such a difficult story for me that there was still so much real active trauma in the telling of this story. And I just so appreciated the time that they took with me, guiding me through the process.

And as the trial date was getting closer, I can't even say that it became easier. The idea of facing him cost me a lot of pain. Croft-Michelson was the lead prosecutor. What were the biggest challenges? One was the magnitude of the file. My recollection was there were more than 700 emails between AK and Adam alone. The second challenge was, are the witnesses actually going to be able to testify? The man known to Amanda and Lorinda for so long as Adam

was actually a 40-year-old Somali national named Ali Omar Adder. He pleaded not guilty to the kidnapping. On October 5, 2017, the trial began in the kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout. It was like the biggest day of my life. Dateline was with her that morning as she made her way to the courthouse. What was going through your head? What were you worried about? In those moments before entering the courtroom, I wondered if I could do it. I was so afraid to see this man again. The thought of seeing him. The thought of seeing his face.

But I gathered myself. I needed to do that as much for myself as anything. I just saw you gather yourself just there when you said it. It's still hard for you. It is. And I expect it always will be. You know, this is real life, like pain. And then the doors opened and I walked into the courtroom and Adam was sitting directly in front of me. And I kind of crumbled.

Now came the moment for Amanda to testify against her kidnapper. Can you describe it for me? She was crying. She was upset. She was afraid. And then she swung her head over and she looked at Adam in the box. And she stopped crying and gave him a look like, I would never want anyone looking at me like that. What gave him a look like I would never want anyone looking at me like that. What kind of a look? It was a firm resolve. Seeing him sitting across from me as a prisoner in that box, that was also the truth now.

It's a reversal. Exactly. And he looked so small in a way, sitting in that box. In her testimony, Amanda spoke openly about how Adam terrorized her. She was on the stand for one long day. But her mom, Lorinda, spent three days in court, listening to the phone calls that would prove crucial to the case. I am not lying to you. You do not want Amanda to be harmed, because if you want, you should pay the money. So, again, you have to relive it.

Yeah, it was empowering. The truth was being told, and there was a small part of me that actually felt sorry for him. Compassion for him. Adam's defense was that he himself had been taken hostage, and they had threatened him. In the end, his defense didn't work. The man known as Adam was found guilty of kidnapping. For his crimes, he was sentenced to 15 years in a Canadian prison. Victory for Amanda Lindhout.

Amanda read a victim's impact statement at sentencing. In it, she addressed Adam. I am the victim. I am also the survivor, she said. I am the one who will go out and live the lessons of this. I choose to lean into the lesson and challenge of finding forgiveness, compassion, and peace. Those words bringing to a close not one, but two improbable stories, Amanda Lindhout's kidnapping and the years spent in pursuit of justice. Ten years of your life. Ten years, yeah.

Five years for the undercover operation, ten years in total until conviction. Worth it? Absolutely. He's sitting in prison right now in this country. Do you think about that ever? It's justice, but I don't take joy in any suffering of any other human being. Have you forgiven Adam?

I can't say yes or no to that question because it's not a forgiving because Adam deserves to be forgiven. But I deserve to have the freedom in my life of not being full of that anger all the time and keep pointing my feet towards forgiveness. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.