Boyle testifies he doesn’t blame his wife for their captivity
Former Afghanistan hostage Joshua Boyle says his abductors told him that Caitlan Coleman’s loud blasphemy in a Kabul guest house led to their kidnapping one day later.
Testifying Friday during his first full day of cross-examination, Boyle said he didn’t blame his wife for the five years of captivity that followed.
He said he blamed their abductors.
“I was not very angry at her over it,” he testified. “I recognized that it was not intentional on her part, and she had no ill intent and certainly didn’t deserve what happened as a result.”
Boyle told court that during their stay in a Kabul guest house in October 2012 Coleman allegedly said blasphemous things “quite loudly and quite dramatically.”
They were kidnapped the next day, about 30 kilometres outside of Kabul, as they drove on a highway to the nearby city of Ghazni. They had spent less than a week in Kabul, mostly sightseeing.
Boyle said he was angry at himself for overestimating Coleman’s ability to control her emotional outbursts while in Afghanistan. He also conceded he had underestimated the danger to which they would be exposed in the war-torn country.
An aspiring war correspondent, Boyle said he wanted to go to Afghanistan to better understand the country and its armed actors. He planned to take photos and to explore whether an overseas reporting career was feasible.
Coleman has testified she didn’t know about Boyle’s plan to go to Afghanistan until they landed in Central Asia and only accompanied him because of his insistence.
She was five months pregnant at the time.
But Boyle told court Friday that Coleman was enthusiastic about the trip to Afghanistan and lied about her knowledge of it simply to deflect criticism from her parents.
He thought they would be safe, he said, since Afghanistan’s crime rate was then better than those in Baltimore or Detroit.
Kidnapping was a remote possibility, he believed. “I was aware that, of the 17,000 tourists who entered the country before us, only one had been abducted,” he said. “So those were the odds.”
His relationship with Coleman deteriorated quickly in captivity, and in late 2013, Boyle said, he announced his intention to seek a divorce upon their release.
Boyle said he initially wanted to divorce Coleman right away, but he realized that would leave her in a vulnerable position with their captors, so he postponed the move.
Crown attorney Jason Neubauer asked Boyle why, if he intended to divorce Coleman, he continued to have children with her in captivity. The couple had three children during their five-year hostage ordeal — two after Boyle’s announced intention to seek a divorce.
Boyle said they continued to have a sex life despite their pitiable circumstances and looming divorce and used to joke together that “prison sex is drastically underrated.”
Boyle flatly denied assaulting or confining Coleman while they were hostages, as she has alleged.
Once, he said, he struck her a single blow with his open hand only to knock a bottle of pills from her hand when she threatened suicide. “I struck her one time and it troubled me greatly. It was the first time I had ever struck her,” Boyle testified.
Neubauer suggested Boyle blamed Coleman for their capture and came to hate her in captivity.
“I don’t hate her even now,” Boyle said.
Earlier, Boyle told court that he identifies as a masochist — someone who enjoys pain and suffering — as he sought to explain why he married a woman he believed was mentally ill, emotionally unstable and dangerously violent.
“I entered a relationship knowing that it would bring chaos and pain. I identify as a masochist,” Boyle testified.
Boyle said he had, over the years, grown accustomed to Coleman’s episodes in which she would claw at his eyes, scratch and slap him as often as twice a week.
“For the most part, I knew what I was signing up for,” he said.
Boyle’s testimony came in response to a series of questions from Neubauer, who sought to understand why Boyle married Coleman if their relationship was as problematic as he described.
Neubauer asked Boyle if he was happy during his marriage, but Boyle deflected the question, saying: “My own happiness is not usually relevant. It’s not something I take much account of.”
Neubauer persisted and Boyle conceded that he was happy sometimes and not happy at other times.
When asked for specifics, Boyle said, “I remember we had a great time making apple sauce bread. We picked the apples and made it from scratch.”
Boyle said his wife’s violence and mental-health issues were the primary sources of turbulence in their marriage, and he told court he believed he was in “physical danger” while living with Coleman.
“She had good periods and bad periods,” said Boyle, who counted himself among a chorus of voices who urged Coleman to seek professional help, which she resisted.
Neubauer suggested Boyle was grossly exaggerating Coleman’s mental-health problems.
“I think you would be wrong,” he said.
Coleman told court that Boyle was a cruel, controlling husband whose physical abuse began while they were hostages and continued upon their return to Ottawa in October 2017.
He is charged with 19 criminal offences.
Boyle has pleaded not guilty and maintains his wife invented the stories of abuse.
Boyle’s cross-examination is to continue Monday.