How a grieving mother tried to ‘build a bridge’ with the militant convicted in her son’s murder

By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new book describes a series of conversations between the mother of an American hostage who was brutally murdered by Islamic State militants in Syria and one of the men who contributed to his death. Diane Foley lost her son, James, in 2014. After Alexanda Kotey was brought to the U.S. in 2020 to face prosecution, he pleaded guilty in a deal that required him to meet with families of the victims. In an interview with The Associated Press, Foley said the conversations were meant as a “tiny step” toward reparation — “for him to begin to kind of understand where we were coming from and for me to try to hear him.”