DUBAI, June 22: The South Korean translator held hostage in Iraq has been beheaded by his captors linked to Al Qaeda, the Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.

An editor with the Al Jazeera said it had received a video of the beheading but was not planning to broadcast it. In Seoul, a foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that the body of 33-year-old Kim Sun-Il, a translator for a South Korean company in Iraq, had been found.

"Yes, we confirm he is dead," the spokesman said. "The body has been found." Militants, in a videotape screened on Sunday, said they would behead the translator within 24 hours unless Seoul's plan to dispatch troops to Iraq was cancelled. -AFP