Former Afghanistan hostage Joshua Boyle remains in police custody after making another a brief court appearance via video from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre Monday morning.
The case has been set over another week for the prosecution to work with Boyle’s defence lawyer on a bail plan, regarding the 15 charges he is facing.
Boyle is scheduled back in court on Monday, Jan. 15.
Boyle, 34, is facing eight counts of assault, two of sexual assault, two of unlawful confinement.
He also faces one count each of misleading police to “divert suspicion from himself,” uttering a death threat, and administering a noxious substance, namely Trazodone.
Last week, disclosure was made in the case. This is the process by which the prosecutors turn over evidence to the defence. It allows Boyle’s legal team to determine how they want to plead, and how to stage the defence of their client.
It is alleged the offences happened in Ottawa between Oct. 14 and Dec. 30.
A court-ordered ban prevents publication of information that would identify any of the alleged victims or any evidence submissions or information disclosed in the bail proceedings.
Boyle’s lawyer, Eric Granger, wrote in an email to Radio Canada International that his client is presumed innocent and has never been in trouble before.
“We look forward to receiving the evidence and defending him against these charges,” Granger wrote.
Boyle, his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and their three children were rescued in October in a commando raid by Pakistani forces, five years after the couple were abducted while on a backpacking trip in Afghanistan. The children were born in captivity.
Several questions have been raised in the media about what Boyle, who was previously married to Zaynab Khadr, daughter of Ahmed Said Khadr, a senior associate of Osama bin Laden, was doing in Afghanistan and why he had knowingly travelled to areas controlled by the notorious Taliban-allied Haqqani network with his seven-month pregnant wife.
Boyle has condemned his captors for raping his wife and inducing an abortion.
Shortly after arriving in Canada Boyle told reporters that the family will be focusing on building a “secure sanctuary” for the surviving children “to focus on edification and to try to regain some portion of the childhood that they have lost.”
With files from The Canadian Press
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