NEW YORK — A former Taliban commander was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Tuesday for crimes including kidnapping a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and providing support that led to the deaths of three American soldiers.
Haji Najibullah's sentencing capped a daylong proceeding in Manhattan federal court that featured a dramatic few moments when the reporter, David Rohde, faced Najibullah and described how Najibullah took part in the abduction of him and two other men in 2008 in Afghanistan but was now “refusing to take responsibility as I look at him today.”
Rohde, who is MSNOW’s national security reporter and previously worked for The New York Times and other publications, told Judge Katherine Polk Failla that he was “surprised and disappointed” that Najibullah was trying to blame others and circumstances for his role in the kidnapping of Rohde, another journalist and a driver.
The men were held for more than seven months before making a dramatic escape from a Taliban-controlled compound in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
In April 2025, Najibullah pleaded guilty to providing material support for acts of terrorism and conspiring to take hostages.
The bearded Najibullah, 50, who wore a black skull cap in court Tuesday, admitted that he provided material support including weapons to the Taliban from 2007 to 2009, knowing it would be used to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Speaking through an interpreter, Najibullah apologized to Rohde and his family, saying “what happened to him was terrible, and I deeply regret my role in it.”
Standing at a lectern just feet from Najibullah, Rohde said it was Najibullah's lies that led him to go to what he thought was an interview but what turned into an ambush.
“Hostage taking is a cruel and cowardly crime. Family members spend weeks and months thinking they have the power to save their loved one's life,” Rohde said, noting it's “an illusion” because families lack the leverage and vast sums needed to meet ransom demands.
Still, Rohde said, the pain he and those who know him have suffered is dwarfed by the deaths of three U.S. soldiers who were killed by Najibullah's cohorts in a separate operation.
Three times, he named the soldiers as he spoke, becoming emotional about their deaths, the pain his family endured and his love for journalism.
In a statement afterward, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the case proves that “those who harm Americans and engage in acts of terrorism will be hunted down and brought to justice, no matter how long it takes.”
As she announced the sentence, the judge praised Rohde for the work that he and his wife have done on behalf of the families of others who were kidnapped.
She said she stopped short of giving Najibullah the life prison sentence that federal sentencing guidelines called for because he had pleaded guilty, sparing more trauma for his victims, and because he was subjected to harsh prison conditions for six years, including during the pandemic.
But she rejected most of the arguments for leniency made by his defense lawyer, who requested an 18-year prison term for his client as he portrayed him as doing what was necessary to protect his homeland during war.
She said fighters under his control attacked a convoy of soldiers, killing three of them.
“I don’t think he needed to pull the trigger, to decapitate a body, to be responsible for what happened,” Failla said.
Rohde called it the “biggest mistake of my life” to set up an interview with Najibullah that resulted in the kidnapping and said he would not have done it if he knew Najibullah was behind the killing of American soldiers.
He noted during his statement in court that the hostage takers had claimed he was a spy “when in fact I was a journalist” who was trying to get the viewpoint of a Taliban commander “to understand their hopes, their lives and their worldview.”
Then, he repeated that he remains “a journalist and I could not be prouder of being part of this profession,” a statement that briefly caused him to get choked up.
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