Canadian man held hostage with family in Afghanistan charged with sexual assault

Joshua Boyle.
(Image credit: Mike Carroccetto/AFP/Getty Images)

Joshua Boyle, the Canadian man who was held by militants in Afghanistan for five years and freed last October along with his wife and three children, was arrested in Ottawa on Tuesday, his lawyer said.

Canadian media reports that Boyle has been charged with eight counts of assault, two counts of sexual assault, two counts of unlawful confinement, one count of uttering death threats, one count of causing someone to take a noxious substance, and one count of misleading police, with the incidents all alleged to have happened since Boyle returned to Canada, CNN reports. His attorney, Eric Granger, told CNN his client has never been in any legal trouble before, and he looks forward to "receiving the evidence and defending him against these charges."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.