Philip Young

Who is Philip Young?

Philip Young is a citizen of South Africa who was convicted of murder in Afghanistan.

According to Young he was working in Afghanistan for Anham, a subcontractor of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Anham was a logistics supplier for the company. Young was Anham's deputy project manager for Afghanistan. He acknowledges shooting an Afghan on 1 October 2009—a former employee, but describes the killing as self-defense.

Young described disgruntled Abdul Ghafar, his former subordinate, opening fire on his vehicle, and that he had merely returned fire. The South African newspaper The Independent quoted Thinus Coetzee, of Amnesty International. He called Young's conviction "deeply flawed"

"The very section of the Afghan Criminal Code under which he was found guilty should have exonerated him on the grounds of self-defence. It was bizarre. None of the paperwork made any sense, so to this day we don’t really know what crime he was convicted of."

Young described being held in a communal cell, with fifteen other men, during his pre-trial detention. He described being held with Taliban and al Qaeda suspects, and had been called upon to fight for his life with fellow prisoners.