Episode's summary
In 2009, Australian security contractor Rob Langdon shot and killed an Afghan colleague during a confrontation in Afghanistan. Rob says the man pulled a pistol and that he fired first in self-defence. What happened next would cost Rob seven years of his life. In Part 2 of Rob's story, he takes Jack inside the moment that changed everything — the shooting, the chaotic hours that followed and his attempt to get out of Afghanistan. He made it as far as Kabul International Airport. With a flight to Dubai waiting, Rob was just minutes away from leaving the country when he was arrested. Rob was charged with murder. He maintained that he had acted in self-defence, but an Afghan court convicted him and sentenced him to death. His sentence was eventually commuted to 20 years imprisonment. He would spend the next seven years inside Kabul's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, living among Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners in conditions his Australian lawyer described as extremely dangerous. Rob takes us inside those years —…
In 2009, Australian security contractor Rob Langdon shot and killed an Afghan colleague during a confrontation in Afghanistan. Rob says the man pulled a pistol and that he fired first in self-defence. What happened next would cost Rob seven years of his life. In Part 2 of Rob's story, he takes Jack inside the moment that changed everything — the shooting, the chaotic hours that followed and his attempt to get out of Afghanistan. He made it as far as Kabul International Airport. With a flight to Dubai waiting, Rob was just minutes away from leaving the country when he was arrested. Rob was charged with murder. He maintained that he had acted in self-defence, but an Afghan court convicted him and sentenced him to death. His sentence was eventually commuted to 20 years imprisonment. He would spend the next seven years inside Kabul's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, living among Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners in conditions his Australian lawyer described as extremely dangerous. Rob takes us inside those years —…
Episodes
Rob Langdon: Seven Years in an Afghan Prison P2
ListenedIn 2009, Australian security contractor Rob Langdon shot and killed an Afghan colleague during a confrontation in Afghanistan. Rob says the man pulled a pistol and that he fired first in self-defence. What happened next would cost Rob seven years of his life. In Part 2 of Rob's story, he takes Jack inside the moment that changed everything — the shooting, the chaotic hours that followed and his attempt to get out of Afghanistan. He made it as far as Kabul International Airport. With a flight to Dubai waiting, Rob was just minutes away from leaving the country when he was arrested. Rob was charged with murder. He maintained that he had acted in self-defence, but an Afghan court convicted him and sentenced him to death. His sentence was eventually commuted to 20 years imprisonment. He would spend the next seven years inside Kabul's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, living among Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners in conditions his Australian lawyer described as extremely dangerous. Rob takes us inside those years —…
Rob Langdon: Sentenced to Death in Afghanistan P1
ListenedFormer Australian soldier Rob Langdon went to Afghanistan as a private security contractor. He would eventually be convicted of murder, sentenced to death and spend seven years inside one of Afghanistan's most notorious prisons. But before the prison, the death sentence and the fight to stay alive, Rob had spent much of his adult life as a soldier. In Part 1 of his story, Rob takes Jack back through his early life and the road that led him into the Australian Army. He talks about his years in the military, the experiences that shaped him and eventually his decision to leave and enter the rapidly growing world of private security contracting. His work would first take him to Iraq before eventually leading him into Afghanistan, where he worked protecting convoys and operating in an extraordinarily dangerous environment. In 2009, everything would change. A confrontation with an Afghan colleague would end with Rob shooting and killing the man. Rob says he acted in self-defence. The Afghan courts would ultimately…
Benedict Allen: Becoming a Crocodile Man P3
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Benedict Allen: He Ate His Dog to Survive P2
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Benedict Allen: Lost and Dying in the Amazon | Lost in the Amazon P1
ListenedAt just 22 years old, British explorer Benedict Allen set out to travel 600 miles through the remote northeast Amazon. It was supposed to be an expedition. Instead, it became a fight for survival. Gold miners hunted him. His canoe capsized, swallowing his supplies. Malaria burned through his body — two types of it, including one that could kill him in 24 hours. Starving, feverish and alone, Benedict made a choice that would haunt him for decades. He eventually walked out of the jungle. But something inside him forced him to confront his near-death experience and a question he needed to answer: why had he lived? So he went back. Not to the Amazon, not yet, but to Papua New Guinea. There, he immersed himself in a culture that still held ancient rituals of manhood and underwent a secret ceremony alongside young tribal initiates — to be cut, scarred and beaten, and to try to understand what it meant to survive, to be tested and to be transformed. This is the story of a young man running towards the very thing…