South Korea confirmed Thursday that a South Korean hostage has been found killed in central Afghanistan amid reports that Taliban militants failed to keep their promise to release eight of 23 South Koreans they took hostage last week.

"One of our citizens kidnapped in Afghanistan has been confirmed to have been killed on July 25," a stone-faced Cho Hee-yong, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, told a press briefing. "The government once again urges the kidnappers to immediately return the hostages to their families and we will continue to do our utmost to win their safe release." The Associated Press reported Afghan police found the bullet-riddled body of a South Korean hostage in Ghazni province, adding the male victim had 10 bullet holes in his head, chest, and stomach.

South Korean TV identified the victim as 42-year-old pastor Bae Hyung-kyu, and the government later confirmed his identity.

Contradicting earlier reports that eight hostages were released and taken to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, Japan's NHK said the Taliban took them back to their hideout out of fear of being harmed. The South Korean government refused to confirm or deny the report.

As the Taliban spotted armored vehicles on the route to the location for the handover, they retreated along with the eight hostages, NHK reported. The talks halted as night descended.

But the Taliban have not killed any of the other 22 Christian volunteers despite the botched hostage delivery and the expiry of a deadline, a senior Afghan official told Reuters.

"I was awake all night and if the Taliban had killed any of them I would have known," said General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief of Ghazni province where the 22 remaining hostages are being held. "No, they have not killed any of the hostages and we are trying to contact the Taliban for resumption of talks."

Baek Jong-chun, South Korea's chief presidential secretary for unification, foreign and security policy, is scheduled to leave for Afghanistan later Thursday in his capacity as a special presidential envoy to help resolve the hostage crisis, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.

"The Korean government is deeply saddened by the news that one of the Korean hostages in Afghanistan was killed by the Taliban kidnappers. The government strongly protests their act of brutality in killing an innocent civilian," Baek said in a statement.

The confirmation came hours after a purported spokesman for the Taliban said the Afghan militants shot and killed one of the South Korean hostages who were kidnapped while traveling to the southern city of Kandahar from the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The victim is the second South Korean civilian killed in a war-torn country in three years. Kim Sun-il, a translator for a Korean military supply provider for the U.S. Army, was beheaded in Iraq in 2004 by insurgents who demanded the withdrawal of South Korean troops.

President Roh Moo-hyun had a telephone conversation with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai late Wednesday, and they agreed to cooperate closely for an early and safe release of the hostages, Roh's spokesman said.

The conversation came on the heels of reports that the Taliban would start killing more hostages unless Taliban prisoners are released by 5:30 a.m. Korean time Thursday (2030 GMT Wednesday).

But a Taliban spokesman later told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) that all 22 remaining captives will be killed unless the Afghan government releases Taliban prisoners by 5:30 p.m. Korean time (GMT 1 p.m.) The purported Taliban spokesman was earlier quoted as saying that some of the eight who were going to be released were sick.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi earlier said the kidnappers demanded the abductees be exchanged for an equal number of Taliban prisoners.

Whether the Afghan government has agreed to release the Taliban prisoners could not be confirmed.

An unidentified Afghan official, however, earlier told Japan's Kyodo News Agency that "huge amounts of money" had been paid to the Taliban for the release of the eight hostages. But no other officials would confirm this account.

On Tuesday, Ahmadi said the group would first swap eight hostages for the same number of Taliban prisoners, hoping to later exchange a greater number of hostages for prisoners.

The South Koreans, mostly women in their 20s and 30s, were taken hostage last Thursday while en route to Kandahar, where they were to provide free medical services.

The report of the death, the first in the crisis, dashed the hopes of the families of the hostages, although they briefly breathed a sigh of relief over news that eight hostages had been freed.

"No! No!" shouted some of the more than 1,000 people who gathered at the Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of Seoul. Many of them wailed, while others made telephone calls to the Foreign Ministry. All the hostages are members of the church's volunteer service team.

SEOUL, July 26 (Yonhap News)