Taliban Leader Who Took U.S. Journalist Hostage Sentenced to 42 Years

The Taliban commander who abducted an American journalist was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to hostage taking and providing material support for terrorism.

The commander, Haji Najibullah, said in his guilty plea last year that he had supported Taliban members who intended to kill U.S. troops and in 2008 had helped abduct David Rohde, then a reporter for The New York Times, as well as an Afghan journalist and driver accompanying him.

“Mr. Najibullah’s conduct included supporting and enabling terrorist acts,” Judge Katherine Polk Failla of Federal District Court in Manhattan said while issuing her sentence, adding that the defendant had carried out the hostage taking with “casual brutality” and “psychological torture.”

Prosecutors had asked Judge Failla for a life sentence, writing to the court that “it is difficult to imagine conduct more sinister and morally wrong than the hostage taking of civilians.” They added that Mr. Najibullah also bore responsibility for an attack in 2008, by fighters under his command, that killed three U.S. service members and an Afghan interpreter. Some of the victims’ bodies were mutilated or burned.

Read more: New York Times