- Laurence Foley
Laurence Michael Foley, Sr. (
October 5 ,1942 —October 28 ,2002 ) was an Americandiplomat assassinated outside his home inAmman ,Jordan .Born in Boston, Foley became a
Peace Corps Volunteer in 1965 serving two years in India upon graduating from theUniversity of Massachusetts . After earning a master's degree in Rehabilitative Counseling at San Francisco State University in 1969, he served as a probation officer in Contra Costa County, California. He later worked for the Peace Corps, serving as Associate Director of the Peace Corps program in thePhilippines from 1980 to 1985. He served as Director of Administration at the Rehabilitation Services of Northern California until joining theUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1988. After working inBolivia ,Peru , andZimbabwe , Foley became Supervisory Executive Officer of USAID/Jordan in 2000.On the morning of October 28, 2002, Foley was killed by gunshots from a 9 mm silenced
pistol as he walked to his car outside his Amman home. OnDecember 14 , Jordan arrested two men,Libya n Salem Sa'ed Salem bin Suweid and Jordanian Yasser Fathi Ibraheem, and charged them with killing Foley. According to Jordan, the men were paid to kill Foley byAbu Musab al-Zarqawi , an Islamist militant leader, later the commander ofal-Qaeda in Iraq . Though the men later confessed, they claimed they were forced to by Jordanian authorities.In April 2004, the two men were sentenced to death for killing Foley. Zarqawi was sentenced to death "
in absentia " for his role in the assassination, but was killed in a U.S.airstrike on7 June ,2006 . Foley's assassins were executed onMarch 11 ,2006 .External links
* [http://usembassy-amman.org.jo/Foley/Foley.htm Remembering Laurence Foley] -
US Embassy in Amman
* [http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/29/diplomat.remembered/ Foley remembered for 'compassion'] -CNN
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3603949.stm Jordan militants sentenced to die] -BBC
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4796280.stm Jordan hangs US diplomat killers] -BBC
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