Ex-hostage says wife raped, infant killed in custody

TORONTO — Former hostage Joshua Boyle said upon arriving back in Canada late Friday that the Haqqani network in Afghanistan had killed his infant daughter and raped his wife during the years they were held in captivity.

Boyle gave the statement shortly after landing in Canada with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three children.

The couple was rescued Wednesday, five years after they had been abducted by the Talibanlinked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip. Coleman was pregnant at the time and had four children in captivity. The birth of the fourth child had not been publicly known before Boyle appeared before journalists at the Toronto airport.

“The stupidity and evil of the Haqqani network’s kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter,” he said.

On the plane from London, Boyle provided a written statement to the Associated Press saying his family has “unparalleled resilience and determination.”

Coleman sat in the aisle of the business class cabin wearing a tan-colored headscarf.

She nodded wordlessly when she confirmed her identity to a reporter on board the flight. In the two seats next to her were her two elder children. In the seat beyond that was Boyle, with their youngest child in his lap. U.S. State Department officials were on the plane with them.

Boyle’s statement expressed disagreement with U.S. foreign policy.

“God has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination, and to allow that to stagnate, to pursue personal pleasure or comfort while there is still deliberate and organized injustice in the world would be a betrayal of all I believe, and tantamount to sacrilege,” he wrote.

He nodded to one of the State Department officials and said, “Their interests are not my interests.”

The Canadian government said they will “continue to support him and his family now that they have returned.”