Freed hostage says Taliban murdered his baby, raped wife

Ottawa, Canada - Freed Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle accused his kidnappers of murdering his baby daughter and raping his wife during his family's captivity by the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated group.

Boyle leveled the accusations in a terse statement he read on arrival in Toronto late on Friday with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three children, who were freed on Wednesday by Pakistani troops.

He condemned the Haqqani network's "stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter" in "retaliation for my repeated refusal to accept an offer...made to me, and the stupidity and evil of the subsequent rape of my wife."

He said the rape was not the action of a lone guard but aided by the captain of the guard and a Haqqani commander he identified as Abu Hajr.

The Haqqani group is headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also the Afghan Taliban's deputy leader. The faction has long been suspected of having links with Pakistan's shadowy military establishment.

Boyle said both incidents had taken place in 2014, two years after he and Coleman, who was "pregnant" at the time, were kidnapped in a remote Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan.

He said they were in Afghanistan helping poor villagers when they were captured. The three children who survived the ordeal were all born in captivity.