French former hostage who was held by Takfiri group ISIL along with James Foley, said he knows the identity the American journalist.

French former hostage who was held by Takfiri group ISIL along with James Foley, said he knows the identity the American journalist.

Didier François, French journalist meanwhile, said he was warned by his former captors against providing details over Foley and ISIL militants.

“Recognized is a very big word. I see roughly who it is,” Mr François, 53, said, adding that he had made no public statements about James Foley or the remaining American hostage, Steven Sotloff, after he was freed in April because of threats of reprisals against them. 

He said that before he was released he was told: “If you make public the fact they are being held or that you were together, reprisals will follow against them. Their exact words were: ‘They’ll be punished’”.

Sources have identified the killer as a British Takfiri but François declined to be more specific, The Telegraph reported.

He said Foley had been singled out for beatings after his captors found pictures on his computer of his brother, who works for the US Air Force.

He told the French TV network i-Tele that Foley, like the other hostages, had been subjected to mock executions, including one particularly gruesome episode in which he was “made to pose as if he was being crucified against a wall.”

He said Foley, who had worked for the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), had been abducted as he left an internet cafe set up by activists in the Syrian city of Idlib, where he had emailed his family and his editors. “As he came out of the cafe, he was intercepted by people from the Islamic Army,” François said.