(2006-03-22) — Justice Department officials said today they have a new plan to get the so-called 20th hijacker executed, despite a TSA attorney’s bungling that may have allowed Zacarias Moussaoui to escape the death penalty under U.S. law.

The novel prosecution approach calls for getting Mr. Moussaoui converted to Christianity, then shipping him to Afghanistan with a Bible verse tattooed on his forehead.

The latest rendition of the death penalty strategy, which lawyers acknowledge faces some significant obstacles, was sparked by news that an Afghani man, Abdul Rahman, faces execution under Muslim Sharia law for becoming a Christian and carrying a Bible.

“In the U.S., we can’t get a confessed terrorist executed after five years of trying,” said an unnamed Justice Department attorney, “But when Moussaoui lands in Kabul, he’ll be lucky to make it through baggage retrieval alive.”

A spokesman for Rick Warren, author of ‘The Purpose Driven Life‘, said the government has asked him to come to Mr. Moussaoui’s prison cell to lead him in a ‘40 Days of Purpose‘ course in hopes that he’ll hear, and believe, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.