Home > Militants decapitate hostage

Militants decapitate hostage

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 24 June 2004
1 comment

Edito

A SOUTH Korean hostage in Iraq was killed and his body was found between Baghdad and Fallujah, west of the capital, South Korea said today.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry confirmed a report on the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera station that Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old man whose captors had threatened to behead him, was dead.

Kim’s body was found by the US military between Baghdad and Fallujah at 10.20pm Tuesday Korea time (5.20pm Iraq time, 23.20 AEST), said Shin Bong-kil, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

"It breaks our heart that we have to announce this unfortunate news," he said.

The South Korean consul in Iraq and Kim Chun-ho, president of Gana General Trading Co, the company that employed the victim, were travelling to the site to collect the remains, Shin said. Gana is a supplier to the US military.

The body was found 35km west of Baghdad, Shin said.

South Korea convened its National Security Council at 3am AEST to discuss the government’s reaction, Shin said.

The US military first identified the remains as an Asian man and notified the South Korean military in Iraq of the finding.

Later, the South Korean embassy in Baghdad confirmed that the body was Kim by checking a picture of the remains that it received by e-mail, Shin said.

Al-Jazeera, which said it received a videotape showing that Kim had been executed, said the execution was carried out by the al-Qaeda-linked group Monotheism and Jihad.

Kim’s kidnappers had threatened to kill him at sundown on Monday unless South Korea cancelled a troop deployment to Iraq. The Seoul government rejected the demand, standing firm with plans to dispatch 3000 soldiers starting in August.

The Associated Press

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9929115%5E401,00.html?name=topstory

Forum posts

  • I wish to correct your use of terms.
    These are not militants, these are terrorists.
    Militants are those who fight for a cause that they belive in and are willing to die for it. Some can call them heros, some can call them cowards, but militants by definition attack militarry targets.
    Those who decapitated this man cannot be considered militants.
    Militants do not use civilians as hosteges and then kill brutaly when their demands are not met.

    The animals that committed this crime have nothing to do with any militancy.