KENNEBUNK, Maine (AP) – The father of a New York Times reporter who escaped captivity in Afghanistan says he had to keep his son’s abduction secret for seven months.

Harvey Rohde of Kennebunk says publicity of his son David’s disappearance would have made him a high value prize in the eyes of the Taliban. He told the Portland Press Herald that he couldn’t tell friends or members of his extended family about his son’s plight.

David Rohde and an Afghan reporter escaped on June 19 in a remote tribal region of Pakistan, where the Taliban had been holding him for ransom.

Rohde, who’s 41, graduated from Fryeburg Academy in 1985. He won a Pulitzer in 1996 for coverage of wartime atrocities in Bosnia.