Guards ‘gang raped me’

Mother tells of horror captivity in Afghanistan

AN American mother kidnapped by Taliban-linked terrorists said she was gang-raped by her guards during her fiveyear captivity in Afghanistan.

Caitlin Coleman, 31, and her husband Joshua Boyle, 34, were taken hostage by the Haqqani network while backpacking five years ago.

Ms Coleman was pregnant at the time and went on to have three more children while imprisoned.

Pakistani forces rescued the couple after a tip-off from US intelligence. In an interview with ABC News, Ms Coleman said her children had been present when she was raped.

“They (the kidnappers) came into the cell and they took my husband out — forcefully dragging him out — and one of the guards threw me down on the ground, hitting me and shouting, ‘I will kill you! I will kill you!’ And that’s when the assault happened.”

“It was with two men and then there was a third at the door,” she said.

Mr Boyle said they told their captors they would not join the Haqqani network.

“I would call them religious hypocrites to their face and I would tell them they would burn in hell fire for what they had done and that I would rather be killed than join their group. And that did not make me any friends,” he said.

Mr Boyle said that he had divine help.

“God likes me better than he likes them, so in the end we ended up with the upper hand I guess,” he said.

Ms Coleman said her children were also hurt by their kidnappers, often being beaten.

“Some of the guards actually actively hated children and would somewhat target (the eldest son) and come up with reasons to hit him either with a stick or otherwise,” she said.

Mr Boyle said the couple would fight to protect the children and one time his wife was badly injured.

“She actually broke her own hand punching one of them. She broke her fingers, so she was very proud of that injury,” he said.

Mr Boyle said the Haqqani offered him freedom four times if he would join the network.

“I think they had a misunderstanding because they recognise that I was somebody who was aware that the US was not always the good guy in the equation so they leapt on that and hoped that I would be joining their ranks,” he said.

“I had to break the news to them that I wasn’t actually of the opinion that there was any good guys in this war. War tends to bring out the worst in everybody.”