Taliban denies murder, rape claim by ex-hostage
– The Taliban yesterday rejected claims by freed Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle that his kidnappers had killed his child and raped his wife during the family’s captivity, saying the woman had a “natural miscarriage”.
Boyle and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, were seized by the Taliban while hiking in Afghanistan in 2012, and then turned over to the group’s affiliated militant Haqqani network in Pakistan.
The couple and their three chil- dren, born in captivity, were freed on Wednesday in a Pakistani military operation triggered by US intelligence.
After landing in Toronto on Friday, Boyle accused his captors of killing his baby daughter and raping his wife – accusations which the Taliban said were “fake”.
In a statement read on his arrival, Boyle condemned the Haqqani network’s “stupidity and evil of authorising 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”.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Boyle and Coleman were never separated during their captivity, “precisely due to the fact that the mujahideen did not want to incite any suspicion”, but he admitted a baby had died.
“During a period of detention, an incident did take place when the woman became ill. The area was remote, no doctors were present and due to this severe condition, the woman had a natural miscarriage of a girl,” Mujahid said in a statement.
The Haqqani group is headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also the Afghan Taliban’s deputy.
Boyle said the death of his daughter and his wife’s rape occurred in 2014, two years after he and Coleman, then “heavily pregnant”, were kidnapped.
Boyle said they had been “pilgrims” helping poor villagers when they were captured. – AFP