MONTREAL: A Canadian man who was held captive by a faction of the AfghanTaliban for five years has been arrested on 15 charges, including sexualassault, illegal confinement and issuing death threats, according toreports on Tuesday.
Joshua Boyle was freed last October along with his American wife CaitlanColeman and their three children born in captivity.
The identity of the alleged victim was being withheld by a court, accordingto Boyle’s lawyer Eric Granger.
Granger added his client was “presumed innocent” and had never been in anyform of legal trouble before.
“We look forward to receiving the evidence and defending him against thesecharges,” he said, adding Boyle would appear before a court in Ottawa onWednesday.
Joshua Boyle was freed last October along with his American wife CaitlanColeman and their three children born in captivity
According to news channel CTV, Boyle is facing eight counts of assault, twocounts of sexual assault and two counts of unlawful confinement, as well asone each of misleading police to “divert suspicion from himself”, utteringa death threat, and administering a noxious substance, Trazodone.
In a statement to The Toronto Starand published on the newspaper´s website,Boyle’s wife would not comment on the specific charges “but I can say thatultimately it is the strain and trauma he was forced to endure for so manyyears and the effects that that had on his mental state that is mostculpable for this”.
She said, “with compassion and forgiveness that I… hope help and healingcan be found for him”.
Coleman added that she and the children were healthy.
Boyle and Coleman, who have been married since 2011, were kidnapped by theTaliban during what they described as a backpacking trip through war-tornAfghanistan in 2012, and were later transferred to the custody of theHaqqani faction.
They were freed on October 12 by the Pakistan Army, but refused to board aUS military plane. Boyle, a Muslim convert and long-time advocate of freedGuantanamo inmate Omar Khadr, cited fears over his background.
Upon his arrival in Toronto two days later Boyle accused his captors ofraping his wife and killing his baby daughter, a fourth child — allegationsswiftly refuted by the Taliban.
A Taliban spokesman admitted a baby had died but said it was a result of anatural miscarriage.
A month later Coleman also spoke of a sexual “assault” by two of hercaptors in an interview with ABC news.
Boyle has been an outspoken advocate for Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured atthe age of 15 in 2002 in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay beforebeing transferred to Canada and later released.
He married Khadr’s sister in 2009.