A Canadian man once held hostage with his American wife in Afghanistan denied assaulting her following their release, in trial testimony that wrapped up on Thursday.

Joshua Boyle, 35, was arrested and charged with assault, sexual assault and forcible confinement at the end of 2017 just two months after he and his wife Caitlan Coleman, 33, returned to Canada after their five-year hostage ordeal.

“Most assuredly not,” Boyle summed up on Thursday when asked if he ever struck his wife Caitlan Coleman.

The day before he rejected claims that he sexually assaulted Coleman, saying they had “playful and erotic” consensual sex.

Boyle also rejected her claims that he was controlling and abusive, saying that Coleman was volatile and suffered violent fits, describing one alleged incident in which she came at him with a knife because he had come back from a grocer with the wrong brand of mayonnaise.

He testified that he never misled Coleman about plans to travel to Afghanistan, contradicting her earlier testimony, and said that during their captivity she had been prepared to trade his life for a few bars of chocolate.

Boyle and Coleman, who married in 2011, were kidnapped by the Taliban during a backpacking trip in 2012 and were transferred to the custody of the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.

Coleman previously testified that during captivity, Boyle became physically abusive, biting, choking, punching, slapping and spanking her, as well as casually threatening to kill her in front of their children, who were born in captivity.

The assaults and abuse, she said, paused briefly after their release, but then started up again.

The court has heard Boyle’s 911 call on the day Coleman walked out of the couple’s Ottawa apartment at the end of December 2017. He claimed she was mentally unstable, struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, and might harm herself.

But the call triggered a police investigation that led to him being charged.

In court, Boyle said Coleman had stripped naked and was “worked up and acting inappropriately” in the hours prior to slipping away.

On Wednesday, two charges of sexual assault using a rope and misleading police were dropped. Boyle has pleaded not guilty to the remaining 17 charges.