Australian man avoids Afghan death sentence

A former Australian soldier has been sentenced to 20 years in jail in Afghanistan for murdering a colleague.

Robert Langdon had been sentenced to death for shooting dead an Afghani colleague while the pair were escorting a convoy to American military bases in mid-2009.

Both men were working at the time for Four Horsemen International, a US private security company.

Their convoy had come under fire from Taleban insurgents. A dispute arose between the two men over whether to continue or to stop for the night. Shots were fired.

After shooting the man, referred to in court as Karimullah, Langdon then tried to stage a fake Taleban attack in which he had colleagues shoot randomly into the air before he threw a hand grenade inside the vehicle in which Karimullah lay dead.

Langdon hurried back to Kabul, where he withdrew $10,000 from his Afghan bank account and tried to board a Dubai-bound plane. However, he was arrested by airport police after some colleagues raised the alarm.

Langdon, who was sentenced to death by two different courts, had argued that he acted in self-defence after thinking Karimullah, who was sitting in a car, was reaching for his own gun.

Langdon appealed and has been spared the death penalty, The Australian newspaper reported today.

Documents show that Langdon's sentence was commuted to 20 years in jail in October 2010 after paying an ibra, a form of compensation in sharia law, to appease the dead man's family, the paper says.

His family in South Australia helped raise the money but were unaware of the latest judgment, the paper says, while AAP's calls for comment were unsuccessful.

Calls to his lawyer Stephen Kenny, who is believed to be on holiday, were not returned.

However Mr Kenny told The Advertiser newspaper he would have to see the decision before deciding what options were available.

"I have not spoken to him (Langdon) yet, but we would be very concerned about a 20-year prison sentence in Afghanistan," Mr Kenny said, according to the newspaper.

- AAP