A Canadian man who was freed from captivity of the Afghan Taliban on Thursday, five years after being abducted, said on Saturday that militants from the Haqqani network killed his child and raped his wife, Reuters reported. Joshua Boyle and his wife, Caitlan Coleman, were kidnapped by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012. They were rescued by the Pakistani Army on Thursday while moving across the border into Pakistan.
“The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network in the kidnapping of a pilgrim, was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorising the murder of my infant daughter,” Boyle said reading a statement to reporters at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. He also said that a “guard” had raped his wife while being assisted by someone he referred to as the “captain of the guard” and supervised by the “commandant”.
He did not elaborate on the use of the word pilgrim. Boyle said that he and his wife had gone to Afghanistan to help “villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where no NGO, no aid worker, and no government” had been able to reach.
Boyle said the Taliban had conducted an investigation in 2016 into the murder and rape, following which they conceded that the crimes were perpetrated by the Haqqani network. Boyle asked the Taliban “to provide my family with the justice we are owed”.
The Canadian flew from Pakistan to London and then to Toronto with his wife and three surviving children on Friday.
United States President Donald Trump said the freeing of the family was “a positive moment” for US-Pakistan relations. “The Pakistani government’s cooperation is a sign that it is honouring America’s wishes for it to do more to provide security in the region,” Trump said.
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