Taliban deny accusations of rape, murder by freed Canadian hostage
Kidnappers could face prosecution in Canada, but there are huge obstacles
The Taliban are denying allegations by freed Canadian hostage Joshua Boyle that his wife was raped and his daughter killed by their abductors in Afghanistan.
Upon his return to Canada Friday, Boyle told reporters that during the five years his family was held by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network in Afghanistan, his wife, Caitlan Coleman, was raped with the assistance of the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant of the network.
Boyle said the Haqqani leadership authorized the murder of his daughter in retaliation for his refusal to accept an offer from the kidnappers, but did not elaborate.
However, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has released a statement saying Coleman had a “natural miscarriage” after an illness that couldn’t be treated because they were in a remote area with no doctors.
Mujahid said Boyle and Coleman are now “in the hands of the enemy” and the statement Boyle gave was “force fed” to him.
Mujahid also said “from the time the couple were detained until their release” Boyle and Coleman were never separated because the kidnappers “did not want to incite any suspicion.”
“No one has either intentionally murdered the child of this couple and neither has anyone violated or defiled them,” Mujahid said in the statement, which was posted to the Taliban media unit’s website.
Boyle told The Canadian Press on Saturday that conditions during the five-year ordeal changed over time as the family was shuffled among at least three prisons.
He described the first as “remarkably barbaric,” the second as more comfortable and the third as a place of violence in which he and his wife were frequently separated and beaten.
Boyle on Friday demanded that his abductors be punished for their actions.
Robert Currie, a professor of international criminal law at Dalhousie University’s Schulich School of Law, said it’s possible that the kidnappers could be prosecuted in Can- ada, though there are significant obstacles.
“It is uncommon, but it’s certainly not unheard of. Canada has prosecuted quite a number of extraterritorial crimes,” Currie said, adding that only certain crimes committed abroad can be prosecuted in Canada, including hostage-taking and a number of terrorism-related offences.
For instance, the man alleged to have made ransom demands during Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout’s kidnapping in Somalia is now standing trial in Ottawa. He was lured to Canada as part of a sting operation.
But Lindhout’s case is one of a rare few, Currie said.
“It’s fairly infrequent, because the preference always is for crimes to be prosecuted in the country that they take place, or the country that most of the elements of the crime take place, because usually — not always but usually — it’s that country that has the most interest in prosecuting them.”
On Friday, Boyle called for the Tali- ban leadership to punish his Haqqani captors. A day later he told The Canadian Press that he wanted to give Taliban leaders “a final chance to actually try to rectify these crimes against humanity, before we turn to other outlets to seek our justice.”
It’s not yet clear what’s happened to everyone involved in Boyle’s kidnapping. He has described his rescue last Wednesday as involving a shootout. His father, Patrick Boyle, told reporters that some of the captors were killed. Joshua Boyle said in a video recorded before he left Pakistan that some of the other captors “ran like cowards” when the Pakistani mili- tary started shooting, though the conditions under which the video was shot are unclear.
Should they be caught elsewhere, they could be extradited to Canada under treaties held between the countries.
Federal justice officials must weigh a number of considerations when determining whether to prosecute in Canada, Currie said.
“It simply needs to be worked out which country has the greatest interest in prosecuting,” he said. Then, it has to be determined whether it’s even feasible to bring the trial abroad.