Rohde and his local interpreter escaped to freedom in Pakistan yesterday, and no ransom was paid.
Months into Rohde's captivity, Haqqani, head of the Taliban's Haqqani Network, backed off his insistence that prisoners be freed and instead said he would accept the previously requested ransom payment of several million dollars, sources say.
The U.S. and Pakistani government months ago offered cash rewards for information leading to Haqqani's capture or killing, with the U.S.'s $5m bounty being issued in March while Rohde was in captivity.
Negotiations aimed at securing Rohde's release took place via multiple channels over several months, with extended periods of no contact between parties.
During that time, Haqqani's group released at least three videos of Rohde in captivity, including an 18-minute video purchased in Khost, Afghanistan February 6 by al Jazeera's Arabic-language TV network, which broadcast 20 seconds of the video that day before agreeing to appeals from the New York Times and others not to further show or report on the video.
That video was first offered by a Haqqani group agent to AfPax Insider and other news outlets on the condition that they agree to televise the video and pay for the tape -- demands rejected by AfPax Insider and al Jazeera's English-language TV network.
AfPax Insider sources say the Rohde video was shot in Miran Shah, the capital of the Pakistani border province of North Waziristan, where Rodhe was taken after being kidnapped last November in Afghanistan.
According to journalists who saw the video purchased by al Jazeera, Rohde appeared in at least one scene of the multi-part video to be frail and distraught, prompting outrage at the kidnappers among journalists who saw the video.
