Extra: Meeting The Terrorist Who Killed My Son

Published Nov 9, 2024, 6:30 PM

James Foley’s death was unimaginable. He was a journalist held hostage by ISIS for two years in Syria and killed in 2014 as a threat to America. Footage of him wearing an orange jumpsuit, and forcibly reading a message before being beheaded was posted to Twitter. The media coverage of the event had the second most recognition in recent American history after 9/11. That was 10 years ago now. 

His mother Diane Foley’s determination to understand her son’s fate led her to meeting with one of the men responsible.

This episode is about the profound impact of James’ life, he saw light in everything and everyone. His mother has been through the complexities of grace and empathy in the face of an unthinkable loss.

American Mother by Colum McCan with Diane Foley is available here. 

Watch the documentary Jim: The James Foley Story on Amazon Prime or Apple TV. 

You can donate to the James Foley Legacy Foundation here.

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Host: Mia Freedman

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Producers: Gia Moylan & Kimberley Braddish 

Audio Producer: Leah Porges

Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

You're listening to a Mum and mea podcast. Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers. This podcast was recorded on Hi True Crime Conversations listeners. It's your host, Jemmy here and I'm jumping back in your ears today to share an important episode with you.

It's from No Filter, which is another interview podcast we have on the Muma Mea network. It's hosted by Mia Friedman and this year marks ten years since the heartbreaking death of James Foley, the American journalist who has taken hostage and killed by ISIS in twenty fourteen. In this episode, his mother, Diane Foley, talks about meeting with one of the people responsible for her son's murder. What unfolds is an incredibly moving conversation about James's life and the grace and empathy Diane has shown despite such an unimaginable loss. It's really powerful, it's thought provoking, and I think it will stay with you long after you listen. Let us know what you think of the episode. I'll see you next week for another true crime conversation.

I'm Mea Friedman and from Mama Mia. You're listening to No filter. If I said the name James Foley, a distant bell might ring in your head. And if I showed you a picture of James, you might recognize his face, big smile, handsome, dark hair, tan skin. It looks a little bit like a movie star in a way. But it wouldn't be until I showed you a photo of James wearing an orange jumpsuit, kneeling in the desert with a black, hooded man standing behind him that it will click. James Foley is that guy. He's the American journalist who has taken hostage in Syria by isis held for two years in shocking conditions, and then beheaded in a public execution that was videoed and shared with the world as a message from terrorists as a threat.

Something like ninety four percent of Americans were aware of Jim's death and how he died. It's the event with the second most recognition in recent American history after nine to eleven.

He would have been horrified by that.

I mean, he was there to talk about the Syrian people. And this is the takeaway.

How James Foley died is what made him famous, and it is difficult to untangle it from how he lived, which is what we're going to do today. He was the eldest of five kids who grew up in a close family. His dad was a doctor, his mum was a nurse, and three of his siblings served in the military. But that wasn't for James. He wanted to be a journalist, and not the deak kind of journalist sitting behind a computer. He wanted to work on the ground in war zones.

I believe the frontline journalism is important. Without these photos and videos and first and experience, you can't really tell the world how.

Bad might be.

James's mother, Diane, who has written a memoir called American Mother and He's my guest Today. Diane knew a thing or two about having children in dangerous situations the military, but she had no idea how big the risks were for James until he was kidnapped in Libya in twenty eleven, and he spent forty four days as a hostage before he was released.

After successful diplomatic negotiations.

Two American journalists and a Spanish journalists are finally going home after being kidnapped and detained by the Libyan government forces for forty four.

Days because unbelievably. When Isis captured him the year after, it was the second time he'd been held hostage. He'd only been home for seven months when he went back into a war zone.

There's physical courage, right, for some reason, I have physical courage, but you really think about it, that's nothing compared to moral courage.

At the end of twenty twenty one, over seven years after millions of people watched her son being executed, Dianne got the opportunity to go and meet with one of his killers, who had just been convicted, and she said, yes, So why on earth did she want to do that? What do you say to one of your son's murderers? And what did he say over the ten hours that they spent together over a couple of days in the American jail where he was being held. This is a story about a mother's love for her son and how it continues to sustain her, how she found a way to heal herself after she lost her boy, and how sitting down with his killer helped her to do that. His Diane Folly, Jim must have been a great kid, because you had four more after him.

He was a great kid. He was a lot of fun and I enjoyed being a mother. He really was. He was a good boy.

How old were you when you had him?

I had Jim when I was young. I was twenty five, so I had energy for him, so that was good.

You talk about him having an amazing imagination.

He loved books from the time he was very tiny, loved to be read to, and once he could read himself, he was reading, often reading and pretending to be people we read about often first bones.

And are often quite cautious and very responsible. Was Jim very adventurous as a kid, because he certainly was as an adult.

He was very adventurousome. He was definitely not cautious. He was very curious about the world, about people. I would not call him cautious at all. I mean, you know, as he got older, he was aware. He wasn't reckless. I mean he was well aware of the dangers in the conflict zone and took all the required safety horses and equipment and all that was necessary. But no, he was not cautious as a child. He was full on wanted to know about the world.

When you have five kids, I've got three, and I've always wondered how when you've got that many children, you maintain relationships with each of them, particularly when they're small, and there's just so much need for attention for meals and arrangements. How did sort of the dynamic of the children and you and your husband John all play out.

Our first two were only two years apart, so that they were busy, but the others were three and four years apart, so that was part of the way we tried to give as much attention as possible to each child. It's always not perfect, you know, as parents, we just do our best. But Jim was a very easy older brother because he really was very protective about the others and was generally pretty easy going as a child and very independent, so they were not needy kids, if you will.

One of the hardest things I find as a parent is the tension between wanting to support what they want to do and their passions and their dreams, and also worrying about them, and also having them not around when perhaps you'd like to see more of them. When he first talked about becoming a conflict journalist and traveling to war zones, how did you manage that tension? What did you say.

At the time Three of his younger siblings were in the military, with one in the Army, one in the Air Force, one in the Navy. So I was quite concerned about them and ignorant in many ways about the high risk of particularly being a freelance conflict journalism. And it took Jim a while to find journalism. He was initially a teacher than a writer. Eventually found journalism, and once he found it, he was so passionate about it that we were delighted he'd found something he really loved.

When he told you he was going to Libya, did you know much about Libya and what was happening over there?

Again, like I say, I think as a consumer of the news, I think I was quite ignorant about the dangers in the Middle East. To be honest, I really didn't know, and Jim didn't emphasize that, but he did make a point of taking, as I said, the safety courses and doing all he felt he could to be as safe as possible. But I was not as aware as I could of and should have as a parent.

What did it actually involve his work in Libya? Like, when you're a conflict journalist, what do you do every day?

Well, first, you get into the country. I mean, that is not that easy in some of these areas. But then you look for reporting on the ground, what is going on on the ground, and that's exactly what they would do. Every day. They would go out to the front line. They would interview civilians, soldiers, people who were living what was going on in the country and looking for important stories that he felt people in the West would want to hear and want to know. So kind of a hectic when they were in country, I think because they had to be thinking about their safety, safety of people they were interviewing, while at the same time looking for good stories and wanting to tell them. So rather stressful when in country, particularly in conflict zones.

One of the things that really came through with what I learned about Jim from your book and from watching the documentary about him that was made by Brian his childhood friend, is how he created families wherever he was, which made me think about he was essentially recreating what you had and your husband had created in the bond of your family and your kids. So when he was in Libya, he had this family of other freelance journalists and other journalists that he was close to, essentially and on the day that they were captured, and when one of them was tragically killed, he was taken hostage along with a few friends. Yes, how did you learn that he was taken?

We heard from Human Rights Watch called us directly looked us up on Facebook and reached out to us out of the blue. And then the second person probably was one of his outlets he was working for. And then eventually US consul called us. So we received several calls, but the first one was from a stranger who worked for Human Rights Watch.

Now you're just an ordinary family. Your son has taken host did in Libya. He was held for forty four days. How did those forty four days play out?

Well, any parent who's ever lost their child forbid they be kidnapped or something like that knows. It's just it's a horrific experience because you are powerless. You have no idea how to help your child. And so we were down on our knees praying most of the time. It was Jim's second oldest, next older brother, Michael, who took a leave from work and did all he could to try to connect with people in Washington, and then a lot of his friends did all the rest you say creative families. Jim was just friendly and so he was always welcomed into any family. That was his one of his gifts. He was a very good listener and interested in people. So what he was taken, his friends were incredibly upset. So they did a website and got on social media and had several campaigns for his return.

Were you asked for a ransom that time.

No, no, we were not. As a matter of fact, the government did not reach out to us at all. I don't know Jim was considered a political prisoner. I mean it was in the middle of war. I'm not sure if they knew what they wanted to do with all their prisoners, to be honest. And he came out really thanks to the connection of another stranger, David Bradley, who at that time owned Atlantic Media. Jim was with Claire Gillis, who was one of his freelancers. So David and his team, along with Jim's friends from Teach for America, did research until they found someone who had connections into Gaddafi government, and it was through those good people that Jim was eventually freed. When I heard he was freed, we were at home. His brother went to meet him in Libya.

How long was he homeful?

He was home for a good six months. I would say he did a gratitude tour to see a lot of his friends, so many people he felt he needed to think. I did quite a bit of speaking on that tour.

Young soldiers sort of spread out across the sand who approached me and struck me with the butt of the air k forty seven half dozen times punched me. I didn't feel hardly anything. Such was my shock at seeing my colleague Anton Morley wounded in the sand, knowing on level right away that he was dead. And I had a lot of time when I got back to the States. I had a month to play over those moments, especially that one day when we were captured, what I would have done, what I could have done, what I should have done, and really examining those things and being able to talk about it openly.

And then went to work in Boston, then as an editor for Global Post. Soon by the fall he was working with Human Rights Watch doing some journalism for them, and then eventually went back into the field.

You must have been thrilled when he had a desk job for that brief time.

Well, we were, I mean, the whole thing was a miracle that he returned. It was amazing.

Diane, How did he tell you he was going back and how did you react?

Well, none of us were very happy. He had been in and out, though he chose to go back and briefly in the fall of twenty eleven, but full time in the beginning of twenty twelve, and that time he headed into Syria, and he went back and forth in and out of Syria several times that year before his kidnapping in November of twenty twelve.

He did some extraordinary things during that time. He spent quite a lot of time at a hospital reporting there and when they had the need for an ambulance, he helped raise money to buy an ambulance.

I would say the flip side of his willingness to get out there and do things is that like, Okay, so you get an ambulance into serious some militia's going to commandeer it and use it for their own purposes.

They're going to put an anti aircraft in the back of it, like go blow shit up. Jim was not focused on that kind of issue, like he would think about, you know, what's the best.

Case scenario, not how things could go wrong.

He was always very mindful of the plight of civilians where he was working. When he was taken the second time, it was very different, wasn't it?

Yes?

How was it different?

Well, the second time it was only witnessed by his fixer, and his fixer didn't know who the captors were.

Can you explain what a fixer is is?

A fixer is a person who translates and drives for foreign reporter who comes in. Like Jim, was not fluent in Arabic, so they had to find someone who knew the country, knew the language, who could get them where they needed to go. So their fixer was a good friend. He was very kind and wanted to help. But at that time there was a huge influx of foreign fighters coming into northern Syria. He didn't know who they were. It's kind of come as a surprise to a lot of us. This group isis a group that we hadn't really heard much about. Who exactly are they? Well, it's a criminal, marauding gang. They come out of the original very brutal, a rocky terra group. They're the worst, They're the worst of the worst.

Washington does not how's his family in New England going to figure that out.

Right, and so that was part of the problem. We didn't know who had taken him. We didn't know if it was the Asad regime or one of these foreign fighters.

What were the circumstances of he's kidnapping that time he was with John Canty, the British journalist, was he.

Yes, yes, And that was one of the differences. Previously Jim had been more under the radar. He worked very quietly under the radar, but I think he missed some male companionship, to be honest, and got friendly with John Canty, which was great in many ways, but I think probably put them at more risk because John was fairer and had a very clear Western accent, whereas Jim was much quieter, I think, at least I'm told when they stopped at some restaurant on their way out of town, you know, they were noticed, apparently.

And again, how did you find out through the fixer?

No, we actually found out through one of his colleagues. Nicole Toungue and Claire Gillis were both in Turkey and they were planning to meet Jim that afternoon, and so they called us the day after that we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It was rather odd that we didn't hear from Jim because he always called on holidays, but we did not hear from him. So that morning Claire and Nicole called us to say he had been kidnapped.

When you didn't hear from him, Diana, did you have that spidery sense of unease?

I did. It was just a deafening silence not to hear from Jim because he always called. And of course when they called, it confirmed our fears.

I imagine there is a huge amount of adrenaline, but nowhere for it to go in terms of Jim's family and how you felt like knowing he'd been taken, like what do you do? Do you call nine one one? Do you call the White House?

Like?

What do you act? Actually do?

Well?

That was the problem. I mean, I'm a nurse, my husband's a doctor. We had no idea what to do, and we were shocked that it happened a second time, I mean really shocked, and of course we went to pray right away. That was my first reaction. It was more and more frightening the fact that nobody knew where he was. He had disappeared. He truly disappeared. In the other in Libya, we knew where he had been taken. It was still a miraculous that we were able to get him out. But in this case we had no idea even if he was alive, we had no idea he had disappeared.

When did his captors first make contact.

We first heard that he was alive in September of twenty thirteen, and he was taken in the previous November. It was a good ten months not knowing if he was alive or not.

The first email came to me, Hello, we have James and want to negotiate for him.

He is safe, he's.

Our friend and we do not want to hurt him. If you want cooperation, we have rules. You cannot go to the media ever about this. If you do, we will not negotiate. We want money fast.

What people hearing this story might expect is that you had a huge amount of government support and official support, because there's a lot of admin involved in being the loved one of a missing person. In terms of trying to find information isn't there, and you felt like you had to finance your own trips to Washington. You had to try and make people understand about Jim's story and get his name out there and get some action. That must have been a very heavy burden to bears along with everything else.

Well, I had to quit my job and do it full time. But I failed. I mean, there was no one in our government in twenty twelve through twenty fourteen to help, no one whose job it was to help an innocent American family even find out where Jim was, never mind get him out. It was a horrible time. But what was even worse was that our government kind of falsely assured me that they were on it. And that was difficult because I spent a lot of the year just trusting that our government was telling me the truth, that they were in fact on it and you know, working on getting Jim home when that wasn't true. I think the people felt uncomfortable and didn't know what to do with me.

To be honest, you know, I know you have deep faith, Diane. Did you have a sense, as his mother like, were you like is he alive? Is he not alive? Can I feel him?

Yeah? I really felt he was alive during that time. I never felt that we had lost him. I really never felt that way. So I just had a feeling that he was alive, but we had no idea where and who had him. And I struggled to get any interest in his plate. I struggled with the media, I struggled with the government, and I was really quite ignorant about how to go about it. Mia.

When the kidnappers made contact and asked for money, you were told very explicitly that not only would the US government not pay any kind of ransom, if you tried to raise money yourself, you could be prosecuted.

Well, we were told that, but much later in twenty fourteen, when that initially came through, FBI just reassured us that don't worry, they're going to keep negotiating. Let's keep them talking. Just tell them you don't have the money, that kind of thing. So nobody said anything like that until later in twenty fourteen when we discovered that it wasn't just Jim, that Jim was also with three other Americans and three British citizens, and also several other Europeans. So it was that spring of twenty fourteen that a person from the National Security Council told us that threatened us actually three times, but in way, Mia he was the one who was telling us the truth. He's the one that was telling me, you know, our government's not going to do anything for him, and if you try, you could go to jail. So we went ahead and raised pledges anyway. But at the time the captors did not engage with us again. They stopped talking to us after a month after they proved to us that they had Jim. They stopped communicating essentially until two weeks before they murdered Jim.

During the time during that second year, not a lot is known about that first year that Jim was in captivity. In the second year, though, you have learned quite a lot because a lot of the men that he was held with, the Europeans, the British, some of them have been released and they paint quite an extraordinary picture of a time when I think it was up to eighteen of them were held together. What have you learned about.

That time, Well, it's really thanks to many of them and Jim's dear friend Brian Oaks, the talented director of the film Jim, the James Foley Story, that I found out what Jim's last two years were like really, and I was just so grateful he was with such good people, all brave people who were either journalists or aid workers. So they were all people who were interested in others and really cared about the suffering that was going on in serious So they were all very good people, very interesting people. They managed all kinds of things to try to survive. Jim was there the longest. Jim was one of the very earliest. Jim and John Pantley were the first, so they were held the longest and the first part of their captivity. They were starved and tortured a lot.

You never know what's going to happen next, and that's much more difficult to handle and to deal with than the beating.

You know, at some point we were so hungry.

We ate banana piles.

Arrange pills were like our candidates.

We received the chicken.

Ones at the boons.

If you are staff, you think about food, but once you eat, you only think about going on the sea. Are going on the forest in the open space is the only thing you want.

But later on, as others came in, I think the captors began to realize they needed to keep them alive because European nations were negotiating for the release of their people. So all those people did come out, and they're the ones that have been able to share stories with me very much.

The descriptions of Jim was as the big brother of the group. He being an American, was the target of a lot of horrific treatment by the gods and by the captors. But you know, they did things like they played games of risk. He managed to draw aboard, and they used little beans the pieces, and how they supported one another. On Christmas Day, they didn't have, obviously anything to give one another, so they all sat in a circle and gave one another the gift of each saying a lovely thing about everyone else in the group.

And I remember that I said to James that, James, first time I met you was you know, in this prison, and you looked as confused as if you were just dumped down on the Earth from the moon or something. And you basically destroyed my whole idea of this great war journalist, Jeames right folly. And then suddenly I find out that you are very clumsy, you're very bad at sports, But then again you you're the most honest person. There is no evil at all to find in your dams.

And there were times when they would fight, and Jim would be the one who would say times break up physical fights. And I got a really strong sense by listening to these other men of the character of Jim, his incredible resilience, his incredible optimism, and just being a good guy.

He was a good guy. And you know, speaking of the film, the film gets into all that. The book American Mother is more about what's happened since Jim's murder.

When you talk about the difference between the fact that a lot of the Europeans though, and people were negotiating and they were released, were you in contact with the other families.

No, because I really, I mean, our FBI did not even tell us who the American families were. We didn't know that until about twenty fourteen. So the European families, we really didn't know, except when I went to France. I did go to France and too Spain, trying to see if they could help me. I did have a chance actually to meet some of the French friends of the hostages anyway, and one family member, but I didn't know they get to know them well until afterwards.

After the break, Diane tells me about the day the unimaginable happened. A journalist called her and told her to look at Twitter, where she saw an image of Jim.

At that time, I just hoped it was a cool joke and it had been photoshopped.

We'll be back shortly, Diane. I want to ask you about the call you got. It was from a journalist, wasn't it. It was what happened in that phone call, if it's not too painful to recount.

No, it was a beautiful August day and my sister was visiting and we received this call out of the blue from this journalist who was crying. She was sobbing on the phone, and I could hardly understand what she was saying. But finally I figured out she was saying, look at Twitter. And then she hung up, and so I looked at Twitter, and that's when we saw the horrific picture of Jim being beheaded. And I did look at the image because I wanted to make sure it was Jim and it was. At that time, I just hoped it was a cruel joke and it had been photoshopped. That was my hope, and so I reached out to everybody I knew. I wrote emails to everybody I had worked with for the past two years. But nobody answered me that day. That in itself was difficult not to hear from anybody that morning. You'd been visited by the FBI for the first time in a long time, exactly, but they didn't seem to know anything. I really don't think they were disings. They didn't seem to know. It seemed odd to me after two years that they're asking from a DNA now it seems so odd, But they didn't, you know, make a deal about.

It, Diane. The video and the photo I've not looked at either, but I know the image is seen in the minds of many people of Jim in the orange jumpsuit in the desert, with the man behind him hooded. I don't even know what to ask you, Diane, in terms of when you talk about that and the image that you have. Is it something that you compartmentalize. I know you never watched the video, but you did see the photo. Is it something that exists quite separate from your memories of Jim and your feelings about him as someone you love and your son.

Of course, Mia, I mean, it's nothing I will ever dwell on, and that's partly why the work of the James Fallow Foundation has been so important to me because that's been a way of keeping Jim's goodness and moral courage alive. So that is what I strive to focus on. Jim would have wanted something good to come out of his sacrifice, if you will, for his country and fellow Americans. So Jim has challenged me big time. But thanks to my faith in God and the goodness of so many people, that's what has made anything good possible. So I'm very grateful.

In American Mother, you write about Jim's moral courage, Can you explain what you mean by moral courage?

I write about it only because Jim was talking about it when he came home from Libya.

There's physical courage, right, for some reason, I have physical courage, But really think about it, that's nothing apart to moral courage.

That we couldn't have true journalism without the moral courage to report on stories that might affect one's career or be dangerous to tell. And so I was, really and I'm still today challenged by that to dare to have the moral courage to fight for what is right and to try to make a difference for others. But That's what I feel Jim was talking about. And so we've used that idea of inspiring moral courage in all our work in our government work, trying to inspire the best of our government to care about fellow citizens, do the right thing, to help families, support families, actually listen and tell them the truth. And the same with our Journalist Safety program. We work with aspiring journalists and freelancers and we talk about having the moral courage to report the truth, to do it as safely as possible, obviously, but to aspire to have the courage to do the right thing in terms of reporting.

You have some pretty extraordinary moral courage. Doing what you're doing, writing the book, giving interviews, speaking about your son.

It keeps Jim's spirit alive, Miya, and that is very important.

Is it a way to keep mothering him, mothering him?

I don't know. He's challenged me, so I almost feel like he's parenting me, challenging me to dare to do better, dare to be better, and dare to speak the truth to power, you know, when it's necessary, but also to try to inspire youngsters. I really think it's important that our children and youth are challenged to make a difference in the world. We need people who aspire to do good things. Nya, speaking of truth to power.

It took three days for then President Obama to reach out. He had a phone call with your husband, he did. It was some time later that you were invited to the White House to meet with him. The line he kept using with your husband and then with you, as you write in the book, is Jim was our highest priority. Jim was my highest priority. Okay, exactly was he?

Though, of course not. And that's why I was not particularly impressed with that comment, because maybe in his head he was telling himself that, but he totally failed. He tied the hands of the FBI. He chose very definitely not to negotiate, and that costs the lives of four young Americans. He did not value their lives, and that made me angry. My righteous anger, if you will, fueled the start of the Holy Foundation and also fuel the star of a lot of good people stepping up to help me, because a lot of people saw the tragedy in it all, and so here our great nation can't even have the backs of the innocent Americans who go out to report the truth or help others who are suffering in the world. It was horrible. It was the worst. I was so embarrassed and angry as an American.

You make the point so eloquently in your book that the argument made by officials to you is that if we negotiate with terrorists and we pay ransoms, that puts every American abroad at risk and makes it more likely that more people will be kidnapped. But you say that other countries do it very well. They do it quietly, they do it behind the scenes, they do it successfully to negotiate the release of their citizens. And you also point out that in terms of the actual money involved, it costs forty million dollars to send a drone into a country that might never come back, and so from a financial point of view, it can hardly be argued paying ransom is out of the budget, so to speak. And you actually have made a difference, perhaps not with the negotiating with the terrorists, but in terms of some of the things that have happened, some of the things that the James Foley Foundation has made happen. What are some of those things? Because Obama it obviously did have an impact on him. He made some announcements after meeting with you.

First of all, there was no evidence that showed that paying ransom increases the captivity of others. Americans are targeted all the time. If anything, the research showed that if you do not negotiate, your citizens are going to be killed, and that's exactly what happened. The British and the US chose not to negotiate and all their citizens were killed.

So why do they do that, Diane, Why do they well have that policy?

It was because they went by this slogan that it makes sense. I suppose when you think about it, that it would incentivize, but the reality that is not the reality. However, I do think more and more countries now are starting to copy some of the terrorist groups and targeting our citizens. So I do feel very strongly. The Fully Foundation strongly feels we must as a nation not only bring find ways to bring our people home, but also to deter the horror and practice of people being taken and used as political ponts. It's a dual challenge. It's not only the challenge of trying to help citizens who are taken hostage abroad, but also at the same time we must work to deter the practice and sometimes they are are in conflict. So that is the challenge we have before us. However, every nation, in my opinion, should have the moral courage to have the backs of innocence citizens who are targeted simply for being a citizen of their country.

Up next, why Diane decided to meet with one of the men responsible for killing her son and what she said to him.

All of us are flawed, right, We all make good decisions and bad ones. But in his case, he's made such an extraordinarily bad decision to join an asis, and all the horrific deeds that he's lost out on his life.

Stay with us. Speaking of moral courage, you chose to meet one of the men who worked to murder your son. Alexander Coti was one of the Beatles, as they were nicknamed, members of ISIS who one was killed in a drone strike, two were brought to America and tried and charged and convicted. When did the opportunity come up to meet with him in jail? And what were the conversations in the Foley household about that?

First of all, it took seven years Alexander Cody and al Shaffio shake the two surviving Beetles if you will, or Jahadis were kidnapped in twenty eighteen, but it took years for them to be extradited to the United States for a trial. That was thanks to a lot of hard work with the British government and our Department of Justice. When they finally did arrive, one of them, Al Shaffiel Shak was very defiant, wanted a full trial, and he had it in twenty twenty two. But Alexander pleaded guilty to all eight counts accounts of kidnapping, torture, all of it accessory, and part of his plea deal was his offer to speak to victims. So when I heard that, I was interested in speaking to him because I knew Jim would have Jim would not have wanted me to be afraid of him, and Jim would have wanted me to hear him out. Jim often worked with many disenfranchised youth ex felons in Chicago and troubled inner city kids in Phoenix and Holyoak, so Jim kind of had always had a heart for the underdog. He definitely would have wanted me to hear him out. But also as a mom, I kind of wanted to tell him who Jim was. But you know, the end result of the whole thing was just incredibly sad. Mia we all lost. You know, when hatred reigns, everybody loses. We lost our beloved Jim, a very talented journalist, and he's lost his free them. Perhaps he'll never even see his family or his homeland again, so he too has lost. Everybody's lost. It was a very sad but good experience in many ways. Odd as it seems, but there was an odd grace in those days. In many ways.

It sounds like you have empathy for him, or maybe, if not empathy, sympathy.

Yeah, I think I do. He's the same age as one of our other sons. Because of his choices, he will be in jail for the rest of his life and never be free, never see his family again. I have a lot of empathy and sympathy for him. It's very sad. It's tragic. All of us are flawed, right, we all make good decisions of bad ones. But in his case, he's made such an extraordinarily bad decision to join in Isis and all the horrific deeds that he's lost out on his life. It's very sad. I mean, I think accountability and justice is important. I don't mean to imply that it's not, because it is extraordinarily important that captors and people who are so violate human rights in such horrific ways as they did, they must be held accountable. And I think it's a very just sentence for him. But it's still sad. As a mom, it's still sad.

When you sat across from him in the hours that you spent with him, was there ever a moment where you just wanted to lunge across the table and scratch his eyes out? No?

Not really, no, yah No?

Is that just me, Diane, I clearly don't have any grace like the rage.

I didn't have that rage towards him to me. In many ways, Alexander is also a victim. He's a victim of poverty, of brainwashing, the jihadis hatred in many ways, he's a victim that doesn't excuse the horrific things he did in any way, and he certainly needs to serve as sentence. But it's sad. It was our government I was angry at because our government has the power to do a lot, and our government considered our son and the other Americans as collateral damage. So I was very angry at our government. So all my anger was fueled towards writing that wrong and helping our country to do much better, to have the backs of brave Americans.

Did Alexander say sorry to you?

He expressed much remorse many times for what our family had gone through. He very humanly justified his actions as being a soldier in war, but he expressed a lot of remorse to me multiple times and in letters to me.

And when you left there, how did you feel?

I had more peace. I felt like I had told him who Jim was, and I feel like I had encouraged him in his faith. He's an intelligent young man, hopefully in his incarceration, and who knows, maybe he'll become a writer or do some good is what I hope for him, to make amends for the horrible sadness he's inflicted on so many people.

Are you still in contact with him?

No, I mean the prisons don't allow that, especially for a prisoner of his caliber. If you will, he's in isolation. Yeah, I don't know if I'll ever hear from him, but they're very strict about who the prisoners are allowed to communicate to and when and how all that.

I just want to finish, Diane by asking about when you experience loss and grief in such a tragic, horrific way, the public element of it, how does that impact the grief? What happened to Jim was so deeply personal to your family, and yet it was something that was so public. I mean, the fact that that image is so seared into the minds of so many people. How do you feel about that? How do you process that well?

I think the only good thing about that was that it was horrifying to everyone, and therefore good people stepped up. I mean that's when we had an outpouring of donations that has helped sustain the work of the James Foley Foundation. Part of the reason for the book so that people would be aware and if it's of interest to them. Small NGOs like ours are always looking for support any generous people who are concerned about the national security threat that it is and wanting to inspire moral courage and journalists. We always need the good people. We need the generous people mia and so that was the only good part of it being so public, is that we were able to reach all the best people in the world. I mean, we received gifts money from all over the world for an entire year, and in our work we continue to look for good people who care about having the moral courage that our countries would do the right thing in the world, would care about others, and would have the backs of people who are suffering by being kidnapped or wrongfully arrested abroad. So we always meet the good people Mia and that's the positive part of anything public is we can reach the good people also.

Well, Diane, you are very much the good people, and I thank you for your moral courage in talking about Jim and continuing to talk about him and fighting for the rights of other hostages. You have created such a legacy for him and extended the legacy that he created for himself. So I just wanted to thank you for that. I really have a sense of him, you know, after reading your book and talking to you, he would be so chuffed. He would just be so chuffed.

He was an incredible person. But these are the kind of people we need. Me We don't remind any of your listeners to read American Mother, to watch Jim, the James Foley story, and to consider donating to people who are trying to make a difference in the world.

Do you know there's no word in the English language for a parent who has lost a child, and there should be. I've had the privilege of interviewing several parents who've lost children during the years I've done my filter, and it never ceases to be shocking. That order of things is just not right in the scheme of the way the universe is meant to work. It cracks the universe a little bit. And for many of the parents that I've interviewed, like Diane, the loss of their child has opened their heart and put a fire under them in a way that you might not actually expect. They create foundations and they raise money and awareness, and it's almost how they keep their child's memory alive, and it's by nurturing a very different kind of relationship with them. One memory that Diane will always have are Jim's final words to her and the rest of his family. There was a hostage who spent a year with Jim who was freed, and each time one of the prisoners that Jim was held with, they're about eighteen of them. Each time one of them was about to be released, some of the other prisoners would try to smuggle letters out to their family, and Jim had written this letter for his family, but the hostage that was about to be released suddenly got scared and he said, I can't smuggle it out, but what I'll do is I'll memorize it. And he did. He memorized this letter, this extraordinary letter from James to his family, and when he was released, he called them up and he recited it down the phone.

Dear family and friends, I remember going to the mall with Dad, a very long bike ride with Mum. I remember so many great family times that take me away from this prison. Dreams of family and friends take me away and happiness fills my heart. I know you're thinking of me and praying for me, and I'm so thankful. I feel you all, especially when I pray. I pray you stay strong and to believe, I really feel I can touch you, even in this darkness when I pray. Eighteen of us have been held together in one cell, which has helped me. We've had each other to have endless long conversations about movies, trivia, sports. We've played games made up of scraps found in our cell. We have found ways to play checkers, chess, and risk and have had tournaments of competition, spending some days preparing strategies for the next day's game or lecture. The games and teaching each other have helped the time pass. They have been a huge help when we repeat stories and laugh to break the tension. We've had week days and strong days. We are so grateful when anyone is freed, but of course yearn for our own freedom. We try to encourage each other and share strength. We're being fed better now and daily. We have tea occasional coffee. I've regained most of my weight lost last year. I think a lot about my brothers and my sister. I remember playing Werewolf in the Dark with Michael and so many other adventures. I think of chasing Maddie and Tea around of the kitchen counter. It makes me happy to think of them. If there is any money left in my bank account, I want it to go to Michael and Matthew. I'm so proud of you, Michael, and thankful to you for happy childhood memories, and to you Christy for happy adult ones. And Big John. How I enjoyed visiting you and Cress in Germany. Thank you for welcoming me. I think a lot about Rowro and try to imagine what Jack is like. I hope he has Roro's personality and mark. So proud of you, too, Bro. I think of you on the West Coast and hope you are doing some snowboarding and camping. I especially remember us going to the comedy club in Boston together and to our be cargafter. These special moments keep me hopeful. Katie, so very proud of you.

You are the.

Strongest and the best of us all. I think of you working so hard helping people as a nurse. I'm glad we texted just before I was captured. I pray I can come to your wedding now I'm sounding like Grammy. Grammy, please take your medicine, take walks, and keep dancing. I plan to take you out to Margariteas when I get home. Stay strong, because I'm going to need your strength to help reclaim my life.

Jim, Oh, that packs a punch. You might want to go and watch the documentary Jim The James Foley Story if you want to know a little bit more about what the type of person James was. He was truly remarkable, and that documentary that was made by a childhood friend of his and a documentary maker. It really paints a picture of the time that Diane didn't know about those few years where James was held and she had no contact with him. The hostages who were freed, who were entued in this documentary say that he kept them alive in there, and he shared food when he didn't have to, and sometimes he broke up fights between the hostages, and he took beatings so that other hostages wouldn't have to. They said things like there was not a bad bone in his body and that he was just pure good. Folly founded the James Foley Legacy Foundation. They do amazing work advocating for the freedom of all Americans that are held hostage abroad, and it also promotes the safety of journalists worldwide who are working in combat ziones. If you want to read Diane's book, American Mother, we will pop a link to all of those things, including the foundation and the documentary in our show notes. This episode was produced by Gam Moylen and Kimberly Bradish, with sound production by Leah Porges and music by Tom Lyon. I'm Mayor Friedman and it's been a little treat to be your years

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