US unseals charges over 2008 kidnapping of American journalist

Indictment reveals charges against Haji Najibullah with six counts related to the kidnapping.

A 1996 photo of Journalist David Rohde reporting for the New York Times, before he was kidnapped with two others at gunpoint in Afghanistan in 2008. AP, file

The US Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed an indictment charging Haji Najibullah, an Afghanistan national, with six counts related to the 2008 kidnapping of an American journalist and two Afghan nationals.

The department added that Mr Najibullah, 44, was arrested and transferred to the United States from Ukraine where he will face trial.

The indictment does not name the journalist, but a law enforcement official familiar with the matter told Reuters the case involves David Rohde, a former Reuters and New York Times correspondent now with the New Yorker who was kidnapped by the Taliban in 2008.

Mr Najibullah is facing charges, including hostage taking, conspiracy to commit hostage taking, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and two counts of using and possessing a machinegun in furtherance of crimes of violence.

Mark Gombiner, a Manhattan-based federal public defender listed in court records as Mr Najibullah’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Rohde also did not respond to a request for comment.

The indictment says that in November 2008, Mr Najibullah “caused” a group of men carrying machine-guns to detainRohde and two Afghans who were helping him. Later, the indictment says, Mr Najibullah and around six armed guards forced the journalist and the Afghans to hike across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

The indictment says that in April 2009, while in Pakistan, Mr Najibullah recorded videos of the journalist begging for help while a machine-gun was pointed at his face.