Mother of Murdered Journalist Calls Life Sentence for ISIS Captors ​‘A Huge Victory,’ Better than the Death Penalty

On the eighth anniver­sary of the August 19, 2014 mur­der of kid­napped jour­nal­ist James Foley, a U.S. fed­er­al dis­trict court in Virginia sen­tenced his killer, Islamic State mil­i­tant El Shafee Elsheikh, to eight life sen­tences in prison. His moth­er, Diane Foley (pic­tured), a lead­ing advo­cate for Americans held hostage abroad, hailed the life sen­tence as ​“a huge vic­to­ry” and ​“a very important deterrent.”

Elsheikh was con­vict­ed of kid­nap­ping and mur­der­ing Foley and three oth­er Americans — jour­nal­ist Steven Sotloff and human­i­tar­i­an work­ers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller — who had been held hostage by ISIS in Iraq. Foley’s graph­ic mur­der by behead­ing was filmed by ISIS and post­ed online as pro­pa­gan­da. Alexanda Kotey, anoth­er mil­i­tant who was cap­tured along with Elsheikh, plead­ed guilty to the same charges in 2021 and was also sen­tenced to life in prison. The third man involved in the killings, Mohammed Emwazi, was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike in 2015.

In sev­er­al inter­views after the sen­tenc­ing, Diane Foley expressed her belief that jus­tice had been done. She told Fox News that the life sen­tence imposed by the court was ​“a much more just sen­tence” than the death penal­ty. ​“These young men will have to spend the rest of their lives think­ing about what they did and why they’ve lost their free­dom, coun­try, and fam­i­ly.” In a news con­fer­ence out­side the cour­t­house, she said ​“this sen­tenc­ing make[s] clear to all who dare to kid­nap, tor­ture, or kill any American cit­i­zen abroad that U.S. jus­tice will find you wher­ev­er you are, and that our gov­ern­ment will hold you account­able for your crimes against our citizens.”

Elsheikh and Kotey, both of whom grew up in England, were cap­tured by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2018 and turned over to U.S. forces in Iraq. U.S. author­i­ties sought British coop­er­a­tion in the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of the men with­out pro­vid­ing assur­ances that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors would not seek the death penal­ty against them. Elsheikh’s moth­er sued to block the British gov­ern­ment from shar­ing evi­dence in a poten­tial cap­i­tal case, and the fam­i­lies pressed the Department of Justice to forego the death penalty.

The Department of Justice refused. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom then unan­i­mous­ly ruled in March 2020 that the British gov­ern­ment had unlaw­ful­ly pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion to the United States with­out first obtain­ing assur­ances that the infor­ma­tion would not be used to impose or car­ry out the death penal­ty. In August 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr informed the fam­i­lies that fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors would agree to drop the pur­suit of the death penal­ty to secure Britain’s coop­er­a­tion in the investigation.

After meet­ing with Kotey last year, Foley told the BBC, ​“If I hate them, they have won. They will con­tin­ue to hold me cap­tive because I am not will­ing to be dif­fer­ent to the way they were to my loved one. We have to pray for the courage to be the oppo­site.” She con­tin­ued, ​“It’s a hard jour­ney to for­give­ness, and it’s not a done deal but it’s what I aspire to.”

In the after­math of her son’s mur­der, Diane Foley found­ed the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, which advo­cates for Americans held hostage and pro­vides cur­ric­u­la and oth­er resources for jour­nal­ist safe­ty. After Elsheikh’s sen­tenc­ing, she brought atten­tion to 67 Americans cur­rent­ly held hostage or being wrong­ful­ly detailed in 20 coun­tries around the world. ​“I urgent­ly call on our President Biden to employ our shrewdest nego­ti­a­tion to quick­ly bring these inno­cent Americans home, lest they die in cap­tiv­i­ty as our sons and daugh­ter did,” she said.