Kim Sun-il

Kim Sun-il (September 13, 1970 – c. June 22, 2004) was a South Korean translator and Christian missionary who was kidnapped and beheaded in Iraq. Kim was fluent in Arabic, holding a graduate degree in that language from Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in February 2003. He also had degrees in English and theology, and had hoped to become a missionary in the Middle East. He arrived in Iraq on June 15, 2003, working for Gana General Trading Company, a South Korean company under contract to the United States military. On May 30, 2004, he was kidnapped in Fallujah — about 50 km (31 mi) west of Baghdad — by the Islamist group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and held as a hostage. The group, which was allegedly led by Abu Musab...