NEW YORK: A former Afghan Taliban commander charged by the United States with abducting a journalist and killing American troops in 2008 was sentenced Tuesday to 42 years in prison.
Haji Majibullah, 50, was accused by US prosecutors of kidnapping an American journalist, identified as New York Times journalist David Rohde, and two Afghan civilians.
He was also charged with the deaths of three US soldiers and an Afghan interpreter in an attack by forces under his command in June 2008.
Arrested in Ukraine, he was extradited to the United States in 2020.
He pleaded guilty last year to hostage taking and providing material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death, according to a Justice Department statement.
"Those who harm Americans and engage in acts of terrorism will be hunted down and brought to justice, no matter how long it takes," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the statement.
Rohde was kidnapped in Afghanistan in November 2008, along with a translator and a driver.
According to the Times, which managed to keep the news of his kidnapping secret so as not to endanger him, Rohde managed to escape from his captors in June 2009.
Hassan Khan, a senior journalist and Afghanistan specialist, said the 42-year sentence will damage the Taliban’s international image and could set a precedent for future prosecutions of Taliban leaders.
“This sentence is signaling that American courts — and possibly European courts in future — can arrest and charge Taliban leaders for actions dating back to their two-decade campaign against US and NATO forces,” Khan said, noting the case’s ransom and hostage elements that echo broader accusations of “hostage diplomacy” by the current Taliban.
He added, however, that the sentence is unlikely to alter Taliban policy or governance inside Afghanistan, where he said the group feels largely immune to outside legal pressure and remains resistant to change despite internal and external pressures.
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