THE NEXT CHAPTER
Couple’s kidnapping ordeal may be over, but hurdles await in Canada.
For children who know no other life than being held hostage, Friday’s plane rides from Islamabad to Toronto was just one of many firsts they will now experience.
Caitlan Coleman, Joshua Boyle and their sons, aged 4 and 2, along with their infant daughter, landed at Pearson International Airport Friday night, ending a five-year-long kidnapping ordeal that has captured international attention.
In a private room inside the airport they reunited with Linda and Patrick Boyle and Boyle’s three sisters, who had brought their nephews cellophane balloons with Canadian flags.
Coleman’s parents, Jim and Lyn, who live in Pennsylvania, did not come to Toronto for their arrival, but Caity’s mother sent a message to pass along to her daughter.
Specialists were on standby to care for the children’s mental and physical needs should they need them immediately, but the family was reported in good health.
An RCMP escort — with baby seats bought by Boyle’s mother already installed in the van — was ready to drive the family from Toronto to their home in Smith Falls, Ont.
But before their plane touched down questions already had been raised.
What were the exact circumstances of their rescue? How will the children cope? Why did the couple go backpacking in Afghanistan in the first place?
Coleman’s father, Jim, told ABC News Friday that he was angry with his son-in-law: “Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable.”
Boyle’s parents, who have called the couple’s decision foolish, said Friday they cannot wait to forgive them for their recklessness.
Coleman, 31 and Boyle, 34, were travelling across Central Asia when they crossed into Afghanistan in October 2012 and were kidnapped. Their families did not know Afghanistan was part of their itinerary.
The powerful Taliban-linked Haqqani network held them captive until Wednesday’s dramatic rescue by Pakistani forces, which was reportedly based on intelligence provided by the U.S.
Boyle spoke to the Star Thursday from a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, saying his family was “psychologically and physically shattered,” but they were looking forward to “restarting.”
But if the Boyle and Coleman story follows the narrative of other hostage cases, then moving on means looking back, and public celebrations about their freedom will quickly turn to recriminations about their character.
An eight-part Star investigation, titled Held Hostage, found that hostages are either hailed as heroes, derided as foolish or worse.
And rescues are always political while determining the facts about them always difficult.
The most detailed account so far of what happened Wednesday in Pakistan, near the border of Afghanistan, comes from Boyle.
He told his parents in a Thursday morning phone call that he was in the trunk of the car with his wife and children when shooting began.
He said he was hit by shrapnel and five of the kidnappers were killed. The last words he said he heard his captors yell were: “Kill the hostages.”
Later Thursday, when speaking with the Star, he said some of the captors fled and he was desperate to help investigators find them so they could face justice.
Boyle and Coleman have quite a story to tell. But so do their relatives, including the back story of the years of negotiations that moved from Ottawa to Washington and New York to Doha, Qatar, Kabul, Islamabad and a few places in between.
Linda and Patrick Boyle say they have met people over the past five years they never thought they would now have on speed dial.
Just this year Ambassador Omar Zakhilwal, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, became an important member of an unofficial team of advisers, which included diplomats, security consultants, government officials, journalists and other professions more difficult to categorize.
Zakhilwal, who is also a Canadian citizen, reached out to the Boyles after watching a December “proofof-life” video that showed their grandsons for the first time while Joshua and Caitlan pleaded for release.
“I was surprised that women and children were held hostage for so many years and I had not even heard about it,” Zakhilwal told the Star.
“I wanted to help with their release if I could, or if not, at least better treatment of them.” On his visits back to Canada, he met with the Boyles to discuss what could be done.
In January, back in Pakistan, he quickly helped get letters and videos from the Boyles and Colemans to the kidnappers.
In reply, Coleman and Boyle sent a video in which Coleman says it will be a “miracle” if her family is freed and Boyle praises the speed with which the letter was delivered. Whoever this “Zakhilwal” is, Boyle said, he puts Canada Post to shame.
Boyle’s parents believed there could be a miracle, clinging to a New York Times report that suggested a rescue could be Barack Obama’s parting act as U.S. president.
It was under Obama that U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release was negotiated with the Haqqanis; a politically unpopular deal that set free Taliban detainees from Guantanamo in exchange for a soldier who had deserted his post.
New U.S. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, had called Bergdahl “a dirty rotten traitor” on the campaign trail, falsely claiming “six young beautiful people were killed trying to find him.”
He even lamented the “old days” and pretended to fire a gun twice. “Bing bong,” he said.
As the inauguration neared, officials from Global Affairs Canada and the RCMP flew to Qatar — always a big player in hostage negotiations — and on to Kabul. Then, on Jan. 20, Trump became the 45th president. And there was no news.
“We’re just hanging on,” Patrick Boyle told me when we met a few weeks later. “It’s so hard when you get your hopes up.
“We had never felt closer to getting them home. And we’ve never been more scared of losing them.”
Fast forward to Friday and Trump heralding their rescue as a sign of Pakistan’s new respect for America.
“I have openly said Pakistan took tremendous advantage of our country for many years, but we’re starting to have a real relationship with Pakistan and they’re starting to respect us as a nation again and so are other nations,” he said.
Boyle had refused to board a U.S. flight to Bagram Thursday with his wife and children once freed in Pakistan — saying he feared going to the U.S. base in Afghanistan, and opting instead to fly commercially to Toronto.
In the call with the Star later that day, Boyle said he wanted to “build a sanctuary for our children in North America.”