By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

              LIMA, Peru (AP) -- From inside a narrow prison courtyard, New York City native
              Lori Berenson contemplated the guilty verdict she believes is coming in her terrorist
              collaboration trial -- but confidently predicted that some day she will be vindicated.

              ``I think at some point, both in Peru and other places, people will find out that I
              wasn't the monster they tried to make of me,'' she said in an interview with The
              Associated Press at Santa Monica women's prison in Lima on Sunday.

              Berenson, 31, is six weeks into a civilian retrial on charges she plotted with leftist
              guerrillas to raid Peru's Congress.

              Her first conviction, handed down with a life sentence by a secret military court in
              1996, was overturned in August after years of pressure from the United States,
              which insisted she was denied due process.

              But Peru's court system has still not offered her justice, she said.

              ``The legal elements are not what are being weighed,'' she charged. ``It's so
              ridiculous, it gets humorous at times. But I really can't do anything about it. Everyone
              knows what's going to happen.''

              She claimed that biased judges, hearsay evidence, antiquated terrorism laws and a
              public anxious for a conviction make her trial nothing more than a political show with
              a scripted ending: guilty as charged.

              Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence. A verdict is expected within a few
              weeks.

              ``I might be in here for a while. It's OK. I'll have to deal with that,'' she said,
              glancing around the austere concrete courtyard of the prison's ``terrorist'' wing,
              where other inmates chatted with family and friends on visitors' day.

              Berenson is accused of knowingly renting a house in 1995 for use as a hide-out by
              leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement guerrillas and helping to plot the
              thwarted Congress takeover in order to exchange hostages for jailed rebels.

              She adamantly proclaimed her innocence, saying she had no idea she was
              surrounded for a year by rebels from the group, better known by its Spanish initials,
              MRTA. But she did acknowledge a certain ``solidarity'' with convicted guerrillas
              whom she has lived with under harsh prison conditions.

              The former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student came to Peru in late 1994
              after working as a personal secretary to a top Salvadoran guerrilla leader during
              peace negotiations that ended El Salvador's bloody civil war.

              She dismissed the view held by many Peruvians that she has acted insolently during
              her trial, blaming the perception on the country's macho society and its negative view
              of strong women.

              During testimony, she has criticized Peru's legal system, suggested police planted
              evidence against her and stood unflinching as she was grilled by the three judges
              presiding over the case. There are no jury trials in Peru.

              Most Peruvians for years have been convinced that she was guilty of involvement
              with the guerrillas because of a pretrial declaration she made to the news media in
              1996.

              Then, with fists clenched at her side, she angrily defended the guerrillas, shouting,
              ``There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA. It is a revolutionary movement.''

              During Monday's proceedings, Berenson rolled her eyes as the court replayed TV
              news coverage of her arrest and her statement to reporters. She later conceded her
              attitude during the 1996 declaration may have been excessive, but argued, ``I don't
              think that represents what I think or who I am.''

              She said she was ``indignant'' after being held in a cell for days with a Tupac Amaru
              prisoner suffering from untended gunshot wounds.

              ``I made the mistake of seeming too aggressive. That was not my intention,'' she told
              the court. ``If I could go back in time, I would have said something similar or the
              same thing, but in a much calmer way.''

              The Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, while smaller and far less deadly than
              Peru's Maoist Shining Path insurgency, is blamed for some 200 deaths since its
              inception in the early 1980s.

              The group, now all but defeated, used kidnapping, extortion and protection money
              from drug traffickers to finance its operations. It gained international attention for its
              four-month hostage siege at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima in 1997.

              Berenson believes her refusal to publicly condemn the rebel group has made her
              chances of acquittal nearly impossible, but she said she has no other option.

              ``If there were an easy way out I might take it, but at this point there is no easy way
              without compromising my principles,'' she said in prison. ``I'm not going to say I did
              something I didn't do and condemn somebody that I am not in the position to
              condemn.''

              In the meantime, ``the way I look at it, I've got no way out,'' Berenson said. ``I'm
              just waiting for this to end.''