this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour which is straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk from washington. i'm stephen sackur. this is a world in which america has many enemies, and the stark reality is that individual american lives have enormous worth to state and non—state actors who seek leverage over the us government. my guest today, diane foley, knows that all too well. her sonjames was kidnapped and then brutally murdered by the so—called islamic state group in syria in 2014. for the last decade, she has been coming to terms with that and also campaigning to get other detained americans home. so is any price worth paying for freedom? diane foley, welcome to hardtalk. thank you.

diane foley, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. it's an honour, stephen. it's a great pleasure to talk to you. and obviously this conversation is going to be difficult. but with the passage of time, now ten years since your son james was so brutally murdered, does it become easier to talk about it? i love to talk aboutjim because i'm very proud of him. i'm proud of the man he became and his desire to make a difference by being a journalist. so i enjoy talking aboutjim. tell me about that desire

of his to be a journalist, because he was raised by you and your husband in a pretty small town... very small. ..in new hampshire, in the north—east of the united states, and i'm guessing that it wasn't the most obvious career path to take. what motivated him to want to be a front line reporter? well, i think it evolved. as a youngster, he loved to read. he was a voracious reader, um, and was very interested in other countries, other parts of the world. he just was very curious, particularly about people. very friendly also, had a real diversity. he was in libya in 2011 during the unrest that was described as the arab spring, which saw gaddafi toppled in libya. exactly. now he, during that chaotic period, was kidnapped and held for a period of...

about six weeks. and then he came home. and then within, well, less than a year, he informed you and the family that he was going to syria, which was even more dangerous, even more unstable. did you try to stop him? absolutely. we alldid. jim was resolved to cover the arab spring. he really found it was something we westerners needed to realise how much these people yearned for the freedoms we take for granted often. you last spoke to him on the telephone, i believe, in fairly late 2012. in november of 2012. jim always called on holidays, and our thanksgiving is a big holiday for us. so when he didn't call that day, we were concerned. it took a long time for it to be officially confirmed that he had been taken by so—called islamic state in northern syria.

we didn't know. no, and our government didn't know either. supposedly, they didn't know. what was the impact upon the family when finally a message was received from islamic state saying, "we have him "and we want to negotiate a ransom"? we were very hopeful, stephen. we thought, "we've heard from them." it was one full year because we didn't receive that emailfrom them until november, late november, and he had been taken in november. so it was an entire year of not knowing if he was alive or not. so we were very hopeful, but our government was... 0ur fbi was not allowed to engage at all with them. i mean, their message had been, and i'm reading from it, "we want to negotiate for him. "he is safe. we do not want to hurt him.

"we want money fast." and i believe a figure of some $100 million was... more than. 132 million or, um, exchange of prisoners. now, you, of course, went into campaign mode. you were determined to do whatever you could to get him out. and you spoke, of course, during these months, to the 0bama administration. what did they say to you about the possibility of reaching out to these people, his captors, and doing some sort of a deal? well, first of all, i did not speak to president 0bama. i really had great difficulty even getting into the white house. so i mainly talked to folks in the fbi and the state department, and they continually told me thatjim was our country's highest priority. and... but the reality of it was i was sent in circles. so it wasn't until 2014 that, as the french and the spanish and some of the others started to come out, that it really dawned on us that, "i don't think "our government is going to negotiate

for them." see, that interests me, because i'm just trying to imagine the impact it had upon you when you, for example, heard from a frenchman who'd been held withjim, nicolas henin, who came out, he described how he and your sonjim had been held together for many months. mm—hm. he said, "i shared jim's fate. we were comrades. "for ten months, we shared everything "except our passports. "and it's precisely that which saved my life and took his," ie the french were prepared to negotiate. exactly. the americans were not. exactly. and i did not realise that, because in a... and was never told directly that until april of 2014, when we were threatened three times, the four american families came together, we finally figured out who was who, and we were told no rescue would be done. we were told that our country would not ask a third country to intervene, and we as families would

be prosecuted should we dare to raise a ransom. prosecuted? yes, we were told that, three times. it was appalling, to be honest. we now know that james was brutally tortured during this period. and starved. waterboarded, beaten. all of it. unimaginable things. because of our failed policies after 9/11. the jihadists really hated the americans, you know. let's fast forward to august 2014. you're hoping against hope that something can be done, and then this video is released. and we did not know. it was a journalist who called me, sobbing, as i said in the book. i couldn't hardly understand what she was crying about, and she was crying because of the video.

she told me to go on twitter and hung up. yeah. you talk about the book, american mother, it's called, which, you know, these years later, you've chosen to write about this period and what came after. but if we just stick with this, even though it's very difficult, people watching and listening to our conversation, many of them will be aware of the video that was released of james and his final moments, and without wishing to be too graphic, he's in an orange jumpsuit. he's in the desert. he's forced to make a statement in which, in essence, he's forced to justify his own execution. mm—hm. and then he... he's beheaded. and i can't imagine what that was like for your family. well, it was shocking. and to be honest, stephen, i believe it was shocking for our government.

i think our government really underestimated the hatred of the isis group. i really do, because we immediately reached out to our government. i mean, i had spent the last two years in washington monthly, at least, trying to raise awareness and, um, get help. so our country was certainly aware. um, but, you know, nobody got back to me that day, because i thought, "well, maybe it was photoshopped, "maybe, you know," but no—one answered any of my emails. i didn't know until president 0bama announced on public tv thatjim was killed. that's when we knew he had died. he'd been murdered. yeah. and that made me angry. i really felt, as fellow citizens, we could do better. part of me is hoping that you never watched that video. i did not, no.

no, i had no... i didn't need to watch that. no. but i did, um, look at his severed head on his body to make sure it wasjim. yeah. you've said, and it's very striking that you said it, that in the immediate aftermath, um, one of the most difficult things for you was not managing your hatred for the people who had done this to your son, but also managing what you frankly described as immediate feeling of hatred, or at least anger... anger. not hatred, but anger. ..anger to the us government for its failures. well, its failures and lack of candour with me. if they'd just told me, you know, "we can't do "anything, we're not going to do anything." um, that was not clear to me until april of 2014.

from 2012, when he was taken, through that time, i had constantly been reassured that jim was our country's highest priority, and they were on it. and i was led to really trust and believe that our government was going to do all they could to bringjim home, when in fact that was not true. and that's what made me angry. yeah. you know, again, i'mjust thinking of how you're struggling to control your feelings because you, again, you're very frank. you say that, quote, "this cruel, stubborn, "misinformed us government policy cost my son his life." right. that's a very difficult thing to live with. and... yes. oh, yes. but i also blame myself because i too was ignorant of the policy. i was very naive in believing people who kept telling me he was the highest priority, because had i been more aware

of our policy and 0bama's stance on non—negotiation with terrorists, i would have been more aware. you met president 0bama afterwards? 0nly afterwards. yes. and he said to you that he wanted you to know thatjim had been his highest priority. i know. i couldn't believe he said that to me. i really couldn't. yeah, but he did. what did you say to him? well, itold him that perhaps... i mean, i have great respect for president 0bama. he was a good president in many ways. none of us are perfect. but when he said that, that was, to me, i said maybe, maybe cerebrally one could feel thatjim was the highest priority, but in action, president 0bama had essentially tied the hands of anyone in our government who could have helped to bringjim home. mm. so i told him that. i want to focus in on your personal decision in the years after 2014 to learn more

about the men who had taken and ultimately killed jim, and ultimately, your decision to meet one of them. well, that's been more recent. i mean, they, um, alexanda kotey and el shafee elsheikh, two of the british jihadists who... cos there were four britons who were responsible, it seems, for holding and in torturing jim after he was taken. three primarily, but, yes, some say that, um, aine davis was related, but, um, yes, but, um, emwazi was killed by a drone strike. he's believed to be the man who actually killed your son. yes. but alexanda kotey was picked up in 2018. with his colleague, el shafee elsheikh. and ultimately he was brought to the united states... two years later. ..charged with murder, and in the course of detention before he was finally convicted and imprisoned in a maximum security prison, he agreed to meet you. mm—hm. you had three meetings.

we did. how, you know, when you reflect on the course of those three, what did you bring to those meetings in terms of any expectation? what did you want to get out of it? i wanted to... i felt very challenged byjim, because had jim survived, he would have wanted to hear alexanda's story. why? you know, why was he...? i mean, his family had sought refuge in the uk. he was brought up there. and why had he become radicalised? why? you know, jim would have wanted to hear that. and as a mother, i wanted alexanda to know whojim was. you didn't take hate into that first encounter, or did you? i did not, no. ihad...

i've never had any hatred, um, just shock, anger towards our government, and a lack of understanding of how anyone could do some of the horrendous things they did to fellow human beings, you know. but i had to pray to have an openness, and see them as the people they are. you didn't take your family with you on this journey? they didn't want to go. no. were they angry with you for doing that? no, but they thought it was... ..it was unnecessary and, um, foolish. they had no desire to go. you said that when you met kotey, you kind of partly felt, in another life, that he and your sonjames could have been friends. imean, that...

well, jim worked with a lot of disenfranchised youth. when he was in teach for america, he worked with a lot of kids who had been bullied or lost parents, had parents who were incarcerated. sojim worked with tough kids like alexanda, you know. you clearly felt sorry for him. it was very sad, stephen. it was so sad. and alexanda expressed a lot of remorse over the course of the three days. that seems quite complicated, because you talk about him and the way he talked to you about regrets. but in the end, you say, "we tiptoed around the notion of forgiveness, "but he did not ask for it outright. "i would have given it to him if he'd asked for it." he did not. but why would you have given it to him? how can you forgive? well, because we're

all failed human beings when you really come down to it. and... but we're not all killers. no, that's very true. but we all have the potential to do very evil things to hurt others. we all have that potential, stephen, and to be honest, he's the same age as one of my sons, so it wasn't that hard as a mother to see him as a flawed human being. there's one incredible moment at the end of those three encounters when you're finally leaving, you know it's going to be the last time, and instinctively, you hold out your hand to him, to this man involved in the brutal murder of your son. and he's a devout muslim, so he's not supposed to shake the hand of a woman who he's not related to or his wife, but he does take your hand, just for a split second or two. and then he's asked why he's taken your hand, and he says, "because she," that is you, "she is like a mother to us all."

the first meeting was very awkward, as you can imagine. i mean, we had an audience of people, and at first, that was very awkward. but in time, i had things i wanted to share, he had things he wanted to share, everyone melted away, really, and it became a rather intimate encounter, him sharing some of the reasons why he had such hatred in himself towards the americans. he had a lot of anger and hatred, a tremendous amount, and that's what fuelled his actions, essentially, is what he said. he never said sorry? to me, he did... he was sorry for what i had endured, but not for his actions. he said that was all in the cause, their cause, their... of war. he's now locked up for life in a maximum security prison. yes. you have chosen to move forward with a james foley foundation,

working as hard as you can to get the us government to handle these sorts of situations differently. right. and over the course of recent years, it's clear you've had an impact. i mean, the us government has, to a certain extent, listened to you and changed policy as a result of your message. well, i don't think it was all me at all. i think it was... it took the beheading of three young americans, innocent americans, and the horrible rape and torture of kayla mueller to awaken our country. i mean, to me, there was a moral awakening with the brutal public murders of these four innocent americans. and in that same timeframe, luke somers and robert levinson, two other brave... luke, a photojournalist, and robert, even a former fbi agent, who also were abandoned in captivity, essentially, to make...

it really pushed president 0bama to do a full government and non—government review. so it was kind of a moral awakening, i like to think, that made our government realise we have to do better, we have to look at this. and there's been a levinson act, so—called... yes. ..which establishes a new protocol for handling these so—called hostage situations. for wrongful detention designation. yeah. you've got now a special presidential envoy within the state department who handles these particular cases, roger carstens. and he says, "what we now refer to as the hostage recovery enterprise "would likely not exist without diane foley." well, i was angry, stephen. and i told the president and anyone who would listen that i thought we could do much better as a country, that we had to value

our citizens who go out in the world to serve, be they as businessmen orjournalists, aid workers. and what we've seen in the last sort of eight or nine years is that a whole number of different us citizens in different detention scenarios, in different parts of the world, have been released, and there have been negotiations to get those people released. it's been a blessing. we've had more than 130 since 2015. it's truly remarkable, stephen. but it does also raise some very difficult questions, because in the recent past, there have been some very high—profile deals, deals, for example, with russia, which have allowed the russians, as part of an exchange, to get americans out of russian detention, have allowed the russians to get, in one case, a convicted murderer, in another case, a couple who were convicted of spying in the west, to get these people home to russia. mm—hm.

exactly. when you hear that these deals have been done, is there a part of you that worries that now state actors are seeing an opportunity to take american citizens into detention and get huge payback in terms of a reward for that? hostage taking has always existed, stephen. and we base our opinion on the evidence, and there's no evidence to show that the negotiations, even the tough ones that, um, resulted in viktor bout coming outand... the russian arms dealer. exactly. now, he was released in exchange for the woman basketball player held in moscow, brittney griner. exactly. so again, the question is, is any price worth paying? what we're looking at,

people will complain and say we're incentivising, you know, here we're getting rid of bad criminals for our innocent people, and we're going to incentivise more kidnapping. the research does not show that. how is yourfaith in humanity after everything you've been through over the last decade? there are so many... there's so much goodness in this world, stephen. i would not be standing and talking to you without the goodness of so many others. and love has to win, and that's why people who care about one another must continue to work hard to have the moral courage to make those tough decisions. no—one wants to exchange a viktor bout for brittney griner. but brittney was innocent. she was working there, you know, and so... but we have to have the courage to make those decisions that might be criticised, and they certainly were, you know, to do the right thing. it isn't, um...

it isn't easy to do that. but without that, we let the bad guys win. diane foley, thank you so much forjoining me on hardtalk. it's my pleasure, stephen. hello there. as the wet and windy weather cleared south on new year's day, it opened the door for cold arctic air to spill right across the country and it's going to stay bitterly cold as we head into the weekend. 0vernight frost and ice

could be a risk for some, and there's a potential for some disruptive snow. so we're under this, clearer skies at the moment, showers feeding in across the far north and west, that cold air descending right across the country. so ice could be an issue first thing, particularly along those exposed coasts where we've seen a rash of showers falling. elsewhere, a frosty start, a cold start, but lots of sunshine to look out for — just like we had this thursday. there will continue to be a feed of showers, particularly down through the irish sea, and some showers of snow in scotland again. temperatures struggling to climb above freezing in some places — generally around 2—4 degrees. now, as we move through the evening, once again, those showers will continue to tuck in along those exposed north and west coasts, so icy stretches again at risk. another cold night to come, with temperatures falling below freezing. so a frosty start to saturday. but it's saturday, or the beginning of the weekend, that we really start to see the first signs of this change, and we could see some significant snow developing late on saturday, into the

early hours of sunday morning. so a cold, crisp, frosty start, some sunshine around, a few scattered showers into the far north—west. during the afternoon, though, this veil of cloud is spilling across the south—west, the first signs of this weather front, and that is going to trap that cold air, really making it feel quite bitter. just a couple of degrees above freezing for some of us through saturday afternoon. and so as this weather front through the evening on saturday pushes into that cold air, on the leading edge, we'll see snow. it should turn readily back to rain across central and southern england. but areas like the peak district, the pennines, northern ireland, southern uplands of scotland could see some significant snow, and with strong winds, blizzard—like drifting conditions from time to time as well. look at the difference with the temperatures on sunday — double digits down to the south—east, single

figures remain in force across scotland. so it's these areas, particularly to higher ground, where there is the potential for some disruptive snow as we move through the weekend. keep watching the forecast.

live from washington. this is bbc news. the fbi says it now believes the driver behind the attack in new orleans acted alone. families of the victims are sharing their stories. this will be something every holiday there will be an empty seat at the table. he wouldn't want us to grieve and mourn, he would want us to keep attacking life. investigators in south korea attempt to arrest president yoon overfailing to appear for questioning — but his supporters and security

team are blocking the arrest. gas prices in europe right on the first day of trading after russian gas stocks reaching eu states by ukraine. thank you forjoining us. the fbi says it now believes a 42 year old us army veteran acted alone in the attack on new year's day that killed 14 people and wounded dozens more in new orleans. shamsud—dinjabbar drove a pick—up truck into large crowds gathered in the city's french quarter before police officers shot him dead amid a firefight. the fbi says they conducted hundreds of interviews and combed through the suspect�*s social media profiles. tom bateman has more from new orleans. the first moments before a deadly rampage. a planned attack unleashed in just seconds. and the narrowest of escapes for some. the fbi probe is now focusing on shamsud—dinjabbar,