South Korea grieves as hostage beheaded

South Korea’s president said his nation was “wrenched with grief” over the beheading of a South Korean hostage in Iraq.

But President Roh Moo-hyun reaffirmed his resolve to dispatch troops there and vowed to “deal sternly” with terrorism.

President Roh condemned the slaying as a “crime against humanity” while rejecting the kidnappers’ claim that South Korea’s plan to send 3,000 additional troops to Iraq would hurt Iraqis, saying the soldiers would help rebuild the country not fight its people.

Militants killed Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old employee of a supply company in Iraq, after Seoul refused to meet their demand to cancel its deployment.

In a video released by the captors on Sunday, Kim pleaded with his government to end its involvement in Iraq, screaming: “I don’t want to die.”

“The South Korean plan to send troops to Iraq is not to engage in hostilities against Iraqis or other Arab people but to help reconstruction and restoration in Iraq,” Roh said in a brief, nationally televised speech.

The first word of Kim’s beheading came overnight in news that stunned the nation.

South Korean television showed Kim’s distraught family members weeping and rocking back and forth with grief at their home in the southeastern port city of Busan.

A banner in the street outside their home read: “The South Korean people have never fired a single bullet at Iraqis. Please send back Kim Sun-il alive.”

South Korea’s KBS television said angry residents in his neighbourhood later tore down placards saying: “Koreans are friends of the Iraqis.”

The government tightened security around its buildings and the US embassy in Seoul in case of protests against the government’s troop plans.