West must negotiate with Isis, says hostage’s mother

The mother of the first American hostage killed by the Islamic State “Beatles” cell has said that the US and British policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists puts their citizens’ lives at greater risk and called for it to be abandoned.

Diane Foley, whose photographer son James was beheaded in an Isis propaganda video in 2014, said that more of the 59 hostages or wrongly held Americans around the world faced death or lengthy detention unless the “arrogant” ban on negotiations was ended.

Foley, 73, was speaking during a break in the American trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, a former British citizen who denies eight charges related to the kidnapping, detention and death of her son, three more US hostages and others including two British aid workers.

The former nurse has devoted the past eight years to a foundation in James’s name to advocate for the safe return of hostages and the protection of journalists in dangerous regions.

She gave evidence this week in court on how she had at first hoped that the Isis video showing her son’s killing by a masked terrorist . She only accepted his death when it was announced that day by President Obama. “Nobody [from the White House] even had the decency to email me or to call me,” she told The Times. “I had worked for nearly two years, I knew these people by first name, a lot of them. Of course Obama I never saw. Nobody would allow him to talk to any of us until Jim was beheaded.”

When she finally met Obama “he had the gall to tell me Jim was his highest priority”, she said. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr President, but that obviously may be the case in your head, but certainly wasn’t in any action that you undertook.’ He was just the same as Biden — they think they’re doing the right thing. They think the policy’s protecting us and they don’t realise that instead, what’s happening is our citizens are in harm’s way and are dying because of our policy.”

Foley contrasted European governments’ willingness to negotiate and make payments or find a way to meet some demands. She praised President Trump for allowing his team to carry out talks that resulted in numerous releases under his administration. Refusing to negotiate “is not an evidence-based policy”, she said.

Obama created the position of special envoy for hostage affairs in 2015 at the end of his presidency, now held by Roger Carstens, a former diplomat.

James, 40, was captured in 2012 and there was an attempted rescue mission by US special forces in July 2014, a month before he was killed, that failed to find hostages. “We could have found our citizens earlier and brought them home safely. I have no doubt about it. I mean, we just choose not to,” she said.

Emwazi, 27, was killed in a US drone strike in Syria in 2015. Asked about Elsheikh, Foley said: “You know, I pity him. It’s really sad. Nobody won here. Everybody lost.”