The federal government wants to avoid prejudicing its representations to the Karzai government on behalf of a former Australian soldier facing execution in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.
Mr Rudd said Robert William Langdon, 38, had been convicted by an Afghan court for the killing of an Afghan security guard, whom he's alleged to have shot four times in the head and body in May last year.
Langdon, understood to have served as a Townsville-based infantryman, was employed by the US-based contractor Four Horsemen International as a security contractor at the time of the shooting.
Mr Rudd said Australia had good "operating relations" with the Afghan government and had intervened over the matter, as it would in the case of any Australian convicted of a capital offence in a foreign country.
"(But) I don't think it would be wise to predict or project the effectiveness of any particular intervention by me," he told Fairfax Radio in Perth on Wednesday.
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"Let's take it in steps. We'll take the closest advice of the Department of Foreign Affairs who'll be following the case in Kabul.
"In the case of this individual, my advice from foreign affairs is that an appeal will be lodged by his lawyers to the Supreme Court of Afghanistan.
"While that appeal is under way I don't intend to get engaged in a rolling commentary on the content of the case.
"We are providing consular support ... and support also to his family in Australia.
"I think it's really important to take it one step at a time.
"We need to adhere to Afghan due process." In relation to the political intervention, Mr Rudd said the federal government would have to "take it as it comes".
"If you're in the business of trying to help somebody who's in a situation like this, talking publicly about how much influence you have with the government in question may not help their case," he said.
"I think it's fair to say generally that we have good operating relations with the government of Afghanistan.
"The key thing here is to keep your eye focused on the result and we would do so with any Australian convicted anywhere in the world of a capital offence.
"That's why I don't want to in any way prejudice securing a result by talking too much about it in the meantime."
