A video image shows armed gunmen standing over kneeling, blindfolded Kim

BAGHDAD , June 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The South Korean held hostage in Iraq has been beheaded by his abductors but his family is heaping the blame on the government for toeing the US line.

The Doha-based Aljazeera news channel aired late Tuesday, June 22, part of a video showing five armed and hooded men standing behind 33-year-old Kim Sun-Il who wore an orange jumpsuit and was blindfolded.

"We warned you, but you preferred to keep your allegiance [to the Americans]. And this is what you have harvested," one of the gunmen said, addressing the Korean authorities.

Islam doesn’t permit any measure that causes harm or humiliation to any human being, let alone killing him in cold blood or slaying him like a sheep for everyone to see.

In Seoul , a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that the body of Kim, who worked for a South Korean company in Iraq , had been found near the flashpoint western Iraqi town of Fallujah , reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The militants, who abducted Kim said Sunday, June 20, they would behead him within 24 hours unless South Korea backtracked on its decision to send troops to Iraq .

Seoul refused to respond to the kidnappers' demands and the deadline expired shortly after 1600 GMT Monday, June 21.

President Roh Moo-Hyun's National Security Council issued a statement condemning the killing and reiterated determination to go ahead with the planned deployment of 3,600 troops, making South Korea the third largest occupation partner in Iraq after the United States and Britain.

Killed By Government

"The cursed government kept declaring it stood firm on its decision to send troops," Kim’s mother (AFP)

The distraught parents of the slain hostage accused the South Korean government of betrayal after failing to prevent his grisly execution.

"My poor son was killed by the government. Bring my son back to life, bring my son back to life," wailed Kim's mother.

Shin Young-Ja, 63, hugged her daughter and stared through her tears at a portrait of Kim flanked by candles laid out on a small table in their modest home in the port city of Busan .

"The cursed government kept declaring it stood firm on its decision to send troops while claiming it was doing its best to save him," said the weeping mother after returning home from hospital where she was taken suffering from shock.

The father, 69-year-old Kim Jong-Kyu, said the government had not been sincere with them and blamed the foreign ministry for failing to secure his son's release.

"I want to bury him in the foreign ministry building. That is all I want from this government," he said.

News of the killing came as a chilling blow to the elderly couple who had been buoyed throughout the previous day by encouraging reports in the Korean media, including one sourced to a South Koran official suggesting Kim's freedom was all-but assured.

"How could he be dead, when only yesterday the government said that he was alive," said the father.

Asked whether he would accept compensation or financial support for the funeral from the government, he grew angry, and said he would spurn any government offer.

"We don't need any money from the government which let my son become a victim," he said.

Missionary Work

The family told AFP on Tuesday that  Kim dreamed of conducting missionary work in Arab countries and planned to return to Seoul from Iraq to further his religious studies with the goal of being ordained as a minister.

They said Kim, as a devout Christian, went to Iraq to make money to fund his studies to become a church minister.

"I tried to dissuade my son from going to Iraq . But I permitted his trip after he said he would earn some money there for graduate school," the father told AFP.

Kim decided to focus his religious ambitions on the Middle East and entered South Korea 's top language school in 2000 to study Arabic after completing compulsory military service of two years and six months, according to AFP.

Missionaries became active in Iraq after the US occupation troops rolled into Baghdad .

On March 28, the Southern Baptist Convention, the US largest Protestant denomination, and the Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse said workers" were on the Iraqi-Jordanian borders ready to go in as soon as it is safe.

Kidnapping foreigners has become more common in Iraq under the occupation.

Many hostages have been released, but at least two, including American Nicholas Berg, have been killed by their abductors.