The family court documents detailing the dispute between Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman over their three children, all of whom were born in captivity, were previously covered by a publication ban. In new documents unsealed this week, Caitlan Coleman, 32, alleges that her husband Joshua Boyle regularly threatened to kill her by setting her on fire during their five-year ordeal as hostages by the Haqqani network. Boyle, 34, denied the allegations, and in his own 23-page affidavit, he accused Coleman of assaulting him and of having untreated mental health issues that he claimed caused her to neglect the couple’s children. Coleman, Boyle and their three children, all of whom were born in captivity, were rescued in October 2017 by Pakistani security forces after living as prisoners for five years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Coleman claimed he tricked her into going to Afghanistan in 2012 by first taking her to Central Asia, when she was five months pregnant, and then telling her they would enter the Taliban stronghold for him to pursue a story as an aspiring journalist. “The court does have evidence, on the other hand, that CC (Caitlan Coleman) is healthily and protectively parenting the children,” the judge noted as she granted Coleman temporary custody of the children. “We both wanted to travel by way of backpacking, and we both wanted to see the world.”

They married during a trip through Central America in July 2011, but soon separated. Khadr is the eldest daughter of Ahmed Said Khadr, a member of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle who died in a firefight with Pakistani forces in October 2003; she outraged many Canadians with her comments in a 2004 documentary in which she suggested that the Sept. 11 terror attacks were justified. Boyle is currently free on bail awaiting a separate criminal trial over charges of assault allegedly perpetrated after the family was rescued in Pakistan and returned to Canada last October.
Caitlan Coleman, an American woman kidnapped and held hostage for five years in Afghanistan, accused her husband Joshua Boyle physically and emotionally abusing her while the family was being held by Taliban-linked militants.