Taliban murdered baby girl, raped wife, says freed Canadian

OTTAWA: Freed Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle accused his kidnappers of murdering his infant daughter and raping his wife during his family’s years-long captivity by the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated group operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Boyle leveled the accusations in a terse statement he read on his arrival in Toronto late Friday with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three children, who were freed 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 that the miscreant of the Haqqani network had 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 was aided by the captain of the guard and a Haqqani commander he identified as Abu Hajr.

Providing few details, Boyle said the death of his daughter and his wife’s rape occurred in 2014.

That was two years after he and Coleman, then “heavily pregnant,” were kidnapped in a remote Talibancontrolled area of Afghanistan.

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

“Obviously it will be of incredible importance to my family to build a secure sanctuary to call a home, to focus on edification and to regain some portion of the childhood they have lost,” he said.

The Canadian government welcomed the family’s arrival.