The American woman who spent five years as a Taliban hostage is accusing her husband of regular physical and emotional abuse while they were both in confinement.
As the Ottawa Citizen reports, Caitlan Coleman returned to the U.S. in July with her and Boyle’s three children after alleging that “J.B. (Joshua Boyle) regularly threatened to kill me by setting me on fire.”
Both Coleman and Boyle were released from their Taliban-linked Haqqani captors last October after backchannel assistance from the Trump administration. Since then, Ottawa police have charged Boyle with multiple counts of sexual assault. Coleman filed a child custody suit against her estranged husband after that. Boyle is currently out on bail and awaiting trial.
In response to Coleman’s allegations, Boyle made his own accusations of ill treatment at his wife’s hands, suggesting she threatened him.
In seeking sole custody of the children, Coleman also accused Boyle of “having an interest in” Islamic extremism.
In unsealed court documents, Coleman asserts, “I would like to stress, most strongly, that for more than a decade, the respondent [Boyle] has had an interest in extremist ideologies and in the complete subservience of women. I have never shared that interest.”
Coleman notes what many others have — that Boyle was previously married to the sister of confessed killer and former al-Qaida terrorist Omar Khadr, Zaynab Khadr, who has expressed support for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Coleman has been in Pennsylvania since July after an Ontario judge granted her sole custody of her three children. Superior Court Justice Tracy Engelking also ordered Boyle to abstain from any contact with Coleman or the children. Coleman, meanwhile, is expecting their fourth child this month.
“To say that the circumstances of this case are tragic in the extreme would be an understatement,” Engelking told the court.