Haji Najibullah appeared unbothered as he walked into Manhattan federal court earlier this week to learn whether he would face life behind bars for his role in brutal violence during his time as a Taliban commander – including the 2008 kidnapping of US journalist David Rohde.

Najibullah, who walked into the courtroom in shackles at about 9.50am Monday, sporting khaki jail garb and a black skullcap, could even be seen grinning at various points before proceedings started.

When the former New York Times reporter Rohde entered the courtroom about 10 minutes later, a female companion took note of Najibullah’s demeanor. “He smiled,” she could be heard whispering. “How dare he smile.”

“He lied to us and he is lying today,” Rohde said as he stood at the lectern during Najibullah’s sentencing. “He is refusing to take responsibility for his actions as I look at him right now.”

The courtroom showdown between Rohde and his one-time captor last week brought to an end a years-long saga that began with a planned interview that turned into a kidnapping, then months of detention before a daring escape and finally the capture and trial of Najibullah.

Najibullah was charged for his role in capturing Rohde and two Afghan associates and holding them hostage for some seven months. Najibullah was also charged with his leadership of Taliban militants who attacked US service members, leading to their deaths. Najibullah pleaded guilty on 25 April 2025 to hostage taking and providing material support for acts of terrorism resulting in death.

Rohde said Najibullah, who had previously spoken to media without incident, agreed to an interview. In a telephone call shortly before the planned sit-down, Najibullah then changed the meeting place. When the group showed up, the road was “blocked” and Najibullah’s men drove them to an undisclosed location in Afghanistan before taking them to Pakistan.

In the months that followed, Rohde was forced at gunpoint to make ransom videos that terrorized his “grieving” family, prosecutors said. Under constant fear of death, Rohde had to deliver the chilling lines demanded of him, such as: “If you don’t help me, I will die.”

Rohde apologized to his family during his address to the court. “It was a huge mistake to go to the interview,” he said, breaking into tears. “I will always regret it.”

“Hostage-taking is a cruel and cowardly crime,” Rohde said at one point, with Najibullah largely looking stone-faced during his statement.

Rohde, his translator, and driver left Kabul for the planned interview at about 7am on 10 November 2008. He left a letter at the Times’s Kabul bureau that read: “If I get kidnapped don’t publicize it. That will be easier for [my wife] + my family.”

He also left behind a note for his wife telling her to use money from his book advance for ransom, writing: “This is my responsibility. I love you so much and am sure this will be OK. Please go and be happy and move forward if things go very wrong.”

The missive chillingly foreshadowed months of what prosecutors described as “psychological torture”.

When they arrived at the meeting point, the translator called Najibullah who told them there was US military activity nearby, directing them to another location. There, machine gun-toting Taliban militants restrained and blindfolded them, transporting them to a house.

There, Najibullah used one of their mobile phones to call the newspaper’s Kabul outpost and told a staffer he was holding them captive because they were spies for coalition forces, prosecutors said.

Najibullah and his accomplices tried wielding their captivity as a tool to extract ransom payments and force the release of Taliban prisoners. Rohde and the other two hostages complied with Najibullah’s orders, fearing death or abuse if they refused, prosecutors said.

The men were shuttled between safe houses where they were forced to cook and clean. Rohde did whatever he could to get them released. He and another hostage “staged a hunger strike.” He pretended to be sick. At one point, he even faked a suicide attempt.

In June 2009, Rohde finally had a real chance. While cleaning, Rohde happened upon a car tow rope. He secreted the cord under a pile of clothes, prosecutors said. Rohde and his translator decided to try escaping with the rope.

On 9 June 2009, Rhode and his translator went to the roof when the guards were asleep. They used this rope to scale the compound wall and fled to a nearby Pakistani military outpost.

The guards let them in and they were brought to US authorities. Rohde, who with his wife wrote about this ordeal in the book A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides, reunited with his family.

This harrowing saga came to a close with Najibullah’s sentencing. Najibullah’s defense asked Judge Katherine Polk Failla for an 18-year sentence; prosecutors pushed for life imprisonment, citing the “unimaginable pain” he caused victims.

Najibullah’s lawyer Andrew Dalack told Failla his client was born in Afghanistan and raised during the brutal Russian occupation. He tried escaping subsequent Taliban rule in Saudi Arabia, but was unable to stay after the US started war in Afghanistan, Dalack said.

Najibullah “had to choose a side” upon his return and joining the Taliban “felt like it was the only decision” he could make. Dalack insisted Najibullah was a “low-level” commander who is now “an enemy to the Taliban”.

“They killed his brother,” Dalack said. At various points during Dalack’s pitch for leniency, Najibullah could be seen touching his beard.

When it came time for Najibullah to speak, he apologized but, like Dalack, invoked context.

Najibullah, through a Pashto translator, said he “deeply” regretted his role in Rohde’s kidnapping while telling the judge that his involvement “brought terrible consequences” to his family, saying the Taliban “martyred” his brother because of Rohde’s escape.

He also criticized the US’s presence in Afghanistan, saying soldiers were sacrificed by “the bad policies made by powerful men in American leadership and Taliban leadership”.

When it came time for Failla to impose Najibullah’s sentence, Failla told Najibullah to rise.

As she handed down a 42-year sentence, Najibullah kept his hands in front of him. Rohde looked on from the gallery.

“Mr Najibullah, do you understand that is your sentence?” Failla asked.

“Yes, I understand,” Najibullah said.