KABUL, July 30: Taliban kidnappers shot dead a South Korean hostage on Monday, a spokesman said, accusing the Afghan government of not listening to rebel demands for the release of Taliban prisoners.

“We shot dead a male captive because the government did not listen to our demands,” spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone.

“We killed one of the male hostages at 6:30 this evening because the Kabul administration did not listen to our repeated demands,” he said.

He said the Taliban would kill more hostages if Kabul ignored their demand to release rebel prisoners, but gave no new deadline.

He said the body had been dumped by the side of a road.

The shooting was a bloody rejection of the authorities’ request for more time for talks on freeing the hostages after the expiry of a rebel deadline.—Reuters