Taliban prisoners
Three Taliban prisoners peer through the window of their cell in a jail in opposition-held Khoja Bahawuddin in Northern Afghanistan, October 31, 2001. Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko

Robert William Langdon, a former Australian army soldier who was convicted for the 2009 murder of an Afghan worker, is now back in Australia after serving seven years in a prison facility in Kabul.

Langdon, 44, arrived Tuesday night in Adelaide airport where his tearful family welcomed him home.

According to Langdon’s lawyer, Stephen Kenny, the reunion was very emotional.

“There was such joy to have him home and it was wonderful to see how happy the family was. It was a very joyous reunion and he had a big grin on his face,” Kenny told the Guardian.

Kenny said Langdon had endured a “long and hellish ordeal” during his stay with Taliban inmates inside the Pol-e-Charki prison in Kabul.

“Some of his fellow prisoners, who were mainly Taliban, knew he’d worked with US authorities. He was threatened on a number of occasions and was attacked while in prison. It was a very dangerous place for him to be,” he said.

Proven guilty

Langdon was working as a private security contractor for the Four Horsemen International in May 2009 when he shot dead a local security agent identified as Karimullah while escorting a convoy to an American military base in Afghanistan. Langdon maintained innocence and claimed that he only acted in self-defence, but a Kabul court found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.

In 2010, Langdon’s death sentence was commuted to a 20-year jail term after his family paid the family of the his victim US$100,000 (AU$130,000) as compensation under Sharia Law.

But last week, Langdon was released from prison after the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, pardoned him.