TOKYO, JAPAN: Kidnapped Japanese aid worker Kazuya Ito was found dead Wednesday (27 Aug) in a mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan, according to Ichita Yamamoto, senior vice minister of Japan's foreign ministry.

The ministry was informed by the Afghan government on Wednesday afternoon that a body of a Japanese-looking man had been found and was being transferred to a hospital in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Yamamoto told a press conference late Wednesday.

The body was officially identified as that of Ito from his facial features, beard and clothes by members of the nongovernmental organisation Peshawar-kai, of which Ito was a member, and by a Japanese Embassy official in Kabul who was sent to Jalalabad.

"At the moment, there's no concrete information about the kidnappers. We're now studying several sources, including background information," said Yamamoto, who heads the government's emergency task force into Ito's abduction.

Yamamoto gave no comment when asked if there had been any ransom demand from the abductors.

Ito's body is scheduled to be transferred to Kabul for an autopsy.

According to Mitsuji Fukumoto, who runs the Japanese headquarters of Peshawar-kai in Fukuoka, Ito's body was found Wednesday morning in a valley about three to four kilometers north of the village of Bodyalai near Dara-e-Noor, Nangarhar Province, where Ito was kidnapped.

It appears he was shot dead by the kidnappers while they ran away.

The body was brought to the village and identified as Ito by the deputy head of a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, which the NGO uses as its operational base. The deputy head, an Afghan, knew Ito very well and said there was no doubt it was Ito's body.

Ito began giving agriculture advice to local residents in Dara-e-Noor in December 2003. He and his driver were abducted Tuesday morning (26 Aug) by a group of armed men.

Ito was shot in the head and legs by his abductors, a doctor who heads activities in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area for Peshawar-kai said Wednesday.

Tetsu Nakamura, 61, who left Bangkok for Afghanistan, said Ito's body was found in a mountainous area about 40km north-northeast of Jalalabad.

"Maybe the kidnappers, after being cornered by villagers, thought it would be difficult to escape and killed Ito, probably by shooting him several times," Nakamura said.

Asked what might have been the kidnappers' motive, Nakamura said: "Our activities have never created animosity among the local people, and there was no trouble. I don't think it was politically motivated either. It was probably just a simple robbery."

Nakamura also said that judging from the way the abduction was carried out, it was probably a poorly thought out action by people that are not trained militants, such as the Taliban.

Nakamura said the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated since the spring snow thaw in April.

He also said he felt anti-Japanese sentiment there was the strongest it had ever been. "Under these circumstances, we started withdrawing our Japanese members temporarily, but on certain points we were too optimistic about the situation," Nakamura admitted. With a report from Norimasa Tahara in Bangkok. (The Yomiuri Shimbun/ ANN)