US journalist rips cowardly and cruel Taliban commander whos sentenced to 42 years for kidnapping him

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist held hostage by the Taliban for months in Afghanistan shot a death glare at his captor in Manhattan court Monday — before the terrorist was slapped with a 42-year sentence.“Hostage taking is a cowardly and cruel crime,” said David Rohde, as he stared down ex-Taliban commander Haji Najibullah, who pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping the veteran reporter at gunpoint in Kabul in November 2008 after luring the journalist with the promise of sitting down for an interview.“He’s refusing to take responsibility for his actions as I look at him right now,” Rohde added, as Najibullah, 50, stared straight ahead, not making eye contact with his victim from his seat at the defense table.Manhattan federal prosecutors had pushed for Najibullah to get a life sentence for allegedly abducting Rohde, his interpreter Asadullah Mangal and local reporter Tahir Ludin and ordering them to hike across the border to Pakistan, where they were held hostage through the winter.The trio’s captors pointed machine guns to their heads while filming chilling hostage videos and demanding a multimillion-dollar ransom from Rohde’s family — along with the release of Taliban prisoners — in exchange for their freedom, prosecutors said.“If you don’t help me, I will die,” Rohde — who had been employed by the New York Times when he was abducted — said in one harrowing 2009 video cited by the feds.Prosecutors also accused Najibullah of playing a role in a slew of Taliban attacks, including the June 2008 ambush of a US convoy that killed three American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter.“He reveled in the targeted killings of American service members,” prosecutor David Robles said Tuesday, calling Najibullah’s conduct “callous, brazen and depraved.”After seven months and 10 days in captivity, Rohde and Ludin daringly escaped after using a rope to lift themselves out of the Taliban compound as their tormentors slept, Rohde wrote i...