Former Taliban hostage held over 15 charges including assault

MONTREAL: A Canadian man who was held captive by a faction of the Afghan Taliban for five years has been arrested on 15 charges including sexual assault, illegal confinement and issuing death threats, according to reports.

Joshua Boyle was freed last October along with his American wife Caitlan Coleman and their three children born in captivity.

The identity of the alleged victim was being withheld by a court, according to Boyle’s lawyer Eric Granger on Tuesday.

Granger said his client was “presumed innocent” and had never been in any form of legal trouble before, adding that Boyle would appear before a court in Ottawa.

Boyle and Coleman, who have been married since 2011, were kidnapped by the Taliban during what they described as a backpacking trip through wartorn Afghanistan in 2012, and were later transferred to the custody of the Haqqani faction, known for its alleged ties to the Pakistani military.

They were freed on Oct 12, but refused to board a US military plane.

Boyle, a Muslim convert and longtime advocate of freed Guantanamo inmate Omar Khadr, cited fears over his background.

Upon his arrival in Toronto two days later, Boyle accused his captors of raping his wife and killing his baby daughter, a fourth child – allegations swiftly refuted by the Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Mujahid admitted that a baby had died but said it was a result of a natural miscarriage.

A month later Coleman also spoke of a sexual “assault” by two of her captors in an interview with ABC news.

Boyle has been an outspoken advocate for Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured at the age of 15 in 2002 in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay before being transferred to Canada and later released.

He married Khadr’s sister in 2009. — AFP