South Korea Confirms Death of Man Held by Terrorists in Iraq
Published: June 22, 2004
he South Korean government today identified the body of a 33-year-old contractor who was believed to have been killed by an Iraqi militant group.
Earlier today, Al-Jazeera television reported that the militant group had beheaded its South Korean hostage, saying it had received a videotape showing that the hostage, Kim Sun-il had been executed, wire services said.
Today, on Al-Jazeera's website, a headline said in Arabic: `South Korean hostage in Iraq killed."
Mr. Kim, 33, worked for a South Korean company supplying the Unites States military in Iraq, the South Korean government has said. An Arabic speaker and evangelical Christian working in Iraq as a translator for a Korean firm supplying goods to the United States Army, Mr. Kim was abducted last week in Falluja, about 30 miles west of Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera, which broadcast only a portion of the tape, said the execution was carried out by the Al Qaeda-linked group Monotheism and Jihad.
If the network's report is correct, he would be the third hostage held by militant groups to be executed on videotape since the Iraq war began a year ago in March.
On Friday, Paul M. Johnson Jr., an American who worked as an Apache helicopter engineer employed by Lockheed Martin, was beheaded in Saudi ARabia by a cell group of Al Qaeda.
At a White House briefing, Scott McClellan, the spokesman, said he had just learned of Mr. Kim's execution.
"There simply is no justification for those kinds of atrocities that the terrorists carry out," he said. "You know, we've seen some of the barbaric nature of the terrorists recently when it comes to an American citizen that was killed in Saudi Arabia, and it is a reminder of the true nature of the terrorists."
In the case of Mr. Kim, his captors had demanded that South Korea cancel plans to raise troop levels in the conflict in Iraq. They had threatened to execute Mr. Kim on Monday if the South Korean government did not meet their demands.
On Monday, the deputy foreign minister of South Korea, Choi Young Jin, said that his government would not change its plan to send 3,000 soldiers to Iraq despite the kidnapping.
The minister made the announcement after government officials held an emergency meeting to discuss the abduction.
"There is no change in the government's spirit and position that it will send troops to Iraq to help establish peace and rebuild Iraq," Mr. Choi said at a news conference.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon had said the government would campaign for the hostage's release.
Al Jazeera television on Sunday broadcast a video of the hostage begging for his life and pleading with Seoul to withdraw troops from Iraq, the Associated Press said.
The kidnappers, who identified themselves as belonging to a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave South Korea 24 hours to meet their demand or "we will send to you the head of this Korean."
In the videotape, the man is heard screaming in English, the A.P. said: "Please, get out of here. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I know that your life is important, but my life is important."
Muhammad al-Saadi, a staff member at the network's headquarters in Qatar, told the A.P. that the tape was mailed to Al Jazeera's bureau in Baghdad.
South Korea announced Friday that it would send the 3,000 soldiers to northern Iraq beginning in early August to assist the multinational force. The country already has 600 military medics and engineers in Nasiriya
