Jama'at al-Tawhid wa'l Jihad had initially set a June21 21stJune deadline in a videotape showing Kim pleading for his life. However, on June22 22ndJune, after initial reports that the militants had given their hostage more time, [[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] television reported that they had received a videotape footage of Kim being [[decapitation|decapitated]] by five men, like hostages [[Nick Berg]] and [[Eugene Armstrong]] in Iraq, [[Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr.|Paul Johnson]] in [[Saudi Arabia]], and [[Daniel Pearl]] in Pakistan. The report was subsequently confirmed by the [[South Korean government]]. In the murder video, Kim is wearing an orange jumpsuit and blindfolded.<ref name="resolute">{{cite news|title=S Korea resolute on Iraq troops|date=23 June 2004 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3831553.stm}}</ref> One of the captors reads a statement and then another takes out a knife and decapitates him. The statement said: "Korean citizens, you were warned, your hands were the ones who killed him. Enough lies, enough cheatings. Your soldiers are here not for the sake of Iraqis, but for cursed America."<ref name="resolute"/><ref>{{cite web|last=Faraj|first=Carolina|title=Pentagon: South Korean hostage beheaded|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/22/iraq.hostage/index.html?iref=allsearch}}</ref>
The president of Gana General Trading is said to have known about the kidnapping almost immediately, but he did not report it until after the videotape aired. He had consulted a lawyer, who argued that the situation must be managed without government intervention if Kim was to be saved. It is claimed that government officials had little time to react. However, there are also reports that a videotape of Kim in captivity, in which he appears calm and openly criticizes U.S. intervention in Iraq, was delivered to the [[Associated Press]] Television News offices in Baghdad in the beginning of June, and that on 3 June an AP reporter in Seoul contacted the South Korean foreign ministry asking if they knew of a missing person with a name similar to Kim Sun-il's.
