This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/canadian-held-in-afghanistan-says-child-was-killed-and-wife-raped-in-captivity

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Canadian held in Afghanistan says child was killed and wife raped in captivity Canadian held in Afghanistan says child was killed and wife raped in captivity
(about 4 hours later)
A US-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan have returned to Canada where the husband said one of his children had been murdered and his wife had been raped. A Canadian man who was held hostage with his family for five years has said that the Taliban-linked militants who abducted him and his wife in Afghanistan raped her and killed an infant daughter born in captivity.
American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. They arrived in Canada with three of their children on Friday night. Giving new details of the family’s ordeal after arriving at Toronto airport following a rescue operation mounted on Wednesday by the Pakistani military, Joshua Boyle said they had been kidnapped while trying to deliver aid to villagers in a part of a Taliban-controlled region that “no NGO, no aid worker and no government” had been able to reach.
“Obviously, it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home,” Boyle told reporters after arriving at Toronto’s Pearson international airport, wearing a black sweatshirt and sporting a beard. There has, however, been some confusion and questions about events following his release along with Caitlan Coleman and their three children, and Coleman’s father decried Boyle’s decision to visit Afghanistan.
Pakistani troops rescued the family in the north-west of the country, near the Afghan border, this week. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. “What I can say is taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place is to me and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” Jim Coleman told ABC News during an interview in which he also expressed puzzlement at reports that Boyle had refused to board a US military plane after the release.
“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 from a statement, in a calm voice. US authorities have said Boyle was not wanted, but a CNN report quoted a senior US official as saying he had balked at boarding the plane because he feared possible detention on US soil. Reports have also focused on his previous marriage to the sister of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who spent 10 years at Guantánamo Bay after being captured at an al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan.
“And the stupidity and evil of the subsequent rape of my wife, not as a lone action, but by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant.“ Boyle denied that he had refused to make the return trip aboard a US military aircraft and had chosen to fly back from Islamabad to Canada on commercial airlines via London. “Obviously, it will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home,” Boyle told reporters after arriving at Toronto’s Pearson international airport, wearing a black sweatshirt and sporting a beard.
He did not elaborate on what he meant by “pilgrim”, or on the murder or rape. Coleman was not at the news conference. Reading out a statement to journalists from a small notebook, he used much of it to hit out at the family’s abductors, the Haqqani network, a group deemed a terrorist organisation by the US.
Boyle said the Taliban, whom he referred to by their official name – the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – had carried out an investigation last year and conceded that the crimes against his family were perpetrated by the Haqqani network. “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, in a calm voice which cracked at the mention of the child.
“And the stupidity and evil of the subsequent rape of my wife, not as a lone action, but by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant.”
He did not elaborate on what he meant by “pilgrim”, or on the murder or rape. Coleman, who was not at the news conference, was preparing to travel to Boyle’s family home in Smiths Falls, 50 miles (80km) south-west of Ottawa, with their three children, all of whom were born in captivity.
He said the Taliban, whom he referred to by their official name – the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – had carried out an investigation last year and conceded that the crimes against his family were perpetrated by the Haqqani network.
He called on the Taliban “to provide my family with the justice we are owed”. “God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network,” said Boyle.He called on the Taliban “to provide my family with the justice we are owed”. “God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network,” said Boyle.
He did not take questions form reporters. The family traveled from Pakistan to London and then to Toronto. Boyle also revealed that one of their children – called Jonah, Noah and Grace – was in poor health and had to be force-fed by the Pakistani military after their liberation in an operation that was carried out on the back of a tipoff by US intelligence.
Boyle provided a written statement to the Associated Press on one of their flights saying his family had “unparalleled resilience and determination”. AP reported that Coleman wore a tan-colored headscarf and sat with the two older children in the business class cabin. Boyle sat with their youngest child on his lap. “In the last three days I have actually only seen one US soldier and we had to speak very briefly and very cordially about the medical attention that the Pakistani medical team was providing to the injured child,” he said.
US state department officials were on the plane with them, AP added. In a separate interview with the Toronto Star on Thursday, Boyle said his family looked forward to rebuilding their lives even though they were “psychologically and physically shattered by the betrayals and the criminality of what has happened over the past five years”.
One of the children was in poor health and had to be force-fed by their Pakistani rescuers, Boyle told AP. “But we’re looking forward to a new lease on life, to use an overused idiom, and restarting and being able to build a sanctuary for our children and our family in north America,” he said.
The family was now expected to travel to Boyle’s family home in Smiths Falls, 80 km (50 miles) south-west of Ottawa, to be reunited with his parents. “I have discovered there is little that cannot be overcome by enough Sufi patience, Irish irreverence and Canadian sanctimony.”
Canada has been actively engaged with Boyle’s case at all levels and would continue to support the family, the Canadian government said in a statement. Their release took place nearly five years to the day after the couple lost touch with their families while traveling in a mountainous region near the Afghan capital of Kabul after embarking in 2012 on a trip that took them to Russia and the former Soviet states of central Asia.
“At this time, we ask that the privacy of Mr Boyle’s family be respected,” it said. Boyle reportedly told his parents on Thursday that he was in the trunk of the car with his wife and children when shooting began and that he was hit by shrapnel. The last words he said he heard his captors shout were: “Kill the hostages.”
The journey home was complicated by Boyle’s refusal to board a US military aircraft in Pakistan, according to two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Boyle instead asked to be flown to Canada. Separately, in a statement and brief words to the Associated Press news agency, Boyle appeared to express disagreement with US foreign policy.
But Boyle said he never refused to board any mode of transportation that would bring him closer to home. “God has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination, and to allow that to stagnate, to pursue personal pleasure or comfort while there is still deliberate and organised injustice in the world would be a betrayal of all I believe, and tantamount to sacrilege,” he wrote.
Boyle had once been married to the sister of an inmate at the US military detention center at Guantánamo Bay. The marriage ended and the inmate was later released to Canada. Nodding to one of two US state department officials on the flight from London he added. “Their interests are not my interests.”
The families of the captives have been asked repeatedly why Boyle and Coleman had been backpacking in such a dangerous region. Coleman was pregnant at the time.
Boyle told the news conference he had been in Afghanistan helping “villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where no NGO, no aid worker, and no government” had been able to reach.
The Taliban and Haqqani network share the same goals of forcing out foreign troops and ousting the US-backed government in Kabul but they are distinct organisations with separate command structures.