ISIS Selling James Foley’s Body For $1 Million

ISIS is selling James Foley’s body for $1 million. Foley was an American freelance journalist beheaded by the Islamic State last summer. BuzzFeed’s Mike Giglio spoke with a former Syrian rebel who told him about the ISIS plans to sell the body of the American reporter.

The former Syrian rebel told Giglio that ISIS asked him to find a “channel” to contact either the family of James Foley or the United States government to make the “sale.” The Islamic State member reportedly promised a DNA sample from James Foley’s body to prove the corpse belonged to the American.

“They ask for $1 million, and they will send DNA to Turkey, but they want the money first. They will not give the DNA without the money,” the former Syrian rebel reportedly told BuzzFeed. The man claimed to be motivated not by greed or a quest for fame, but by a desire to help the mourning Foley family, “find closure” and deemed his outreach as part of a “humanity case.”

Earlier this year, ISIS held captive 23 Western hostages in Syria. The 15 European hostages were reportedly freed after their various governments paid millions of dollars in ransom. American and British hostages still remain captive by Islamic State militants.

ISIS posted videos of the beheading of American and British captives online. To date, the Islamic State has executed James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Alan Henning, and Peter Kassig. An unidentified 26-year-old female American aid worker and British journalist John Cantlie are still being held by ISIS. One of the three former Syrian rebels who spoke with the journalist on the behalf of ISIS has allegedly been tied to Islamic State commanders since the early days of the Syrian Civil War. The unidentified man said that he has served as an “intermediary” in hostage negotiations with both al-Nursra and ISIS. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Jabhat al-Nusra is an off-shoot of al-Qaeda.

The BuzzFeed ISIS source also allegedly opened his iPhone to share unpublished vides of hostages from Western nations currently in the custody of al-Nusra and ISIS. The hostages from Western countries, which do not negotiate with terrorists nor allow families to pay ransoms, has reportedly spurred a black market where middlemen seeking to facilitate such payments thrive. “This is business,” one such alleged hostage middleman told BuzzFeed.

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[Image via ABC News]