Rescued hostages home in Canada, getting medical exams

TORONTO » Former hostage Joshua Boyle returned Saturday to his parents’ home in Canada where he said full medical exams were being arranged for him and his family after they were rescued from their captors, the Taliban-linked extremist Haqqani network in Afghanistan.

Boyle said earlier at Toronto’s airport after landing with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three young children that the network killed their newborn daughter and raped his wife during the five years they were held in captivity.

“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.

The couple was rescued Wednesday, five years after they were abducted by the 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.

Boyle said his wife was raped by a guard who was assisted by his superiors, and he asked the Afghan government to bring them to justice.

“God willing, this litany of stupidity will be the epitaph of the Haqqani network,” he said.

Boyle said he was in Afghanistan to help villagers “who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where no NGO, no aid worker and no government has ever successfully been able to bring the necessary help.”

After returning to his parents’ home in Smiths Falls, Ontario, Boyle emailed The Associated Press a new statement saying they had “reached the first true ‘home’ that the children have ever known — after they spent most of Friday asking if each subsequent airport was our new house hopefully.”

“Our daughter has had a cursory medical exam last night, and hospital staff were enthusiastically insistent that her chances seemed miraculously high based on a quick physical.

Full medical work-ups for each member of my family are being arranged right now, and God-willing the healing process — physically and mentally can begin.”

Earlier, on a plane from London, Coleman, who is from Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, sat in the business-class cabin wearing a tan headscarf.

She nodded wordlessly as she confirmed her identity to a reporter on board the flight. 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 also on the plane with them.

Boyle provided a separate, handwritten statement then expressing disagreement with U.S. foreign policy.