Bail hearing for former Taliban hostage delayed

A CANADIAN court postponed a bail hearing yesterday for former Taliban hostage Joshua Boyle, who was arrested on Saturday and faces criminal charges including assault, sexual assault and forcible confinement.

The charges, filed on Monday, are for crimes prosecutors said had occurred in Canada after Boyle and his family returned to the country.

The crimes were allegedly committed between October 14, two days after he returned home, and December 30. The alleged victims were two unnamed women.

Boyle and his wife, Caitlin Coleman, were kidnapped in October 2012 while backpacking in Afghanistan.

When they returned to Canada with three children born in captivity, Boyle said a fourth child had been murdered and his spouse raped after their capture by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.

The Taliban denied the accusations of rape and murder.

Boyle, 34, appeared in an Ottawa courtroom on Wednesday via video link dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. He confirmed his name, but did not enter a plea to the charges. He is due to appear again in court on Monday. He faces eight counts of assault, two of sexual assault and two of unlawful confinement, as well as one each of misleading police to “divert suspicion from himself”, uttering a death threat and administering a noxious substance, the anti-depressant Trazodone.

Boyle has retained the services of Lawrence Greenspon, one of Canada’s leading criminal defence lawyers.

His wife told the Toronto Star: “Ultimately it is the strain and trauma he was forced to endure for so many years and the effects that had on his mental state that are most culpable for this.

“With compassion and forgiveness, I hope help and healing can be found for him.” – Reuters, The Telegraph