Diane Foley, the mother of slain American journalist James Foley, said that she was "appalled and embarrassed" by the way the U.S. government handled the issue of her son's captivity and bid to free her son.
In an interview with CNN Thursday, Foley said the government threatened legal action against the family if they tried to raise a ransom to free their son from the militants. "We were told we could not raise ransom, that it was illegal, that we might be prosecuted," the grieving mother said on the Anderson Cooper 360 show. "That was a real possibility. We were told that many times."
Foley said that the effort made by the family and friends to free her son from the clutches of the Islamic militants was perceived as an "annoyance." She said that it seemed that it was not in the government's strategic interest to help release James from the captors.
"Jim would have been saddened. Jim believed to the end that his country would come to their aid," Foley said. She added that the government told the family not to inform media about the situation. Moreover, the Obama administration said that no prisoners would be exchanged to free her son and no military action would be undertaken.
"We were just told to trust that he would be freed somehow miraculously, and he wasn't, was he," she said. "I pray that our government would be willing to learn from the mistakes that were made and to acknowledge that there are better ways for American citizens to be treated."
James Foley was one of the two American journalists brutally beheaded by the IS in August. His execution attracted wide criticism of President Barack Obama's handling of the Iraqi and Syrian militants. The second American journalist, Steven Sotloff, was too beheaded by the IS within two weeks of Foley's execution.
Obama strongly condemned the two attacks saying that America will not "forget" the killings.
"Those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served," he said during his Estonia trip earlier this month.
