Diane Foley was repulsed by the thought of shaking the hand of the shackled prisoner seated in the courthouse room. As she prepared to meet Alexanda Kotey for the first time, the prospect of touching the terrorist who had beaten and helped murder her son played heavily on her mind. There was no doubting his guilt. Kotey was a British-born Islamic State fighter and a leading member of the three-man gang dubbed “the Beatles” (he was “Jihadi George”) by the foreign hostages they delighted in torturing in Syria. He had already pleaded guilty in a US court to all eight of the counts against him: charges including kidnap, torture and conspiracy to murder four American hostages.
Diane’s son James Foley was the first Western captive the gang had killed. The August 2014 image of her eldest-born, shaven headed, hands bound and wearing an orange Guantánamo-style jumpsuit, kneeling in the desert with a knife held to his throat moments before he was beheaded, became emblematic across the world as testament of Islamic State’s cruelty and intent.
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