Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon says the government had twice called on South Korea's Gana Trading Company to withdraw its staff from Iraq prior to last month's murder of Gana employee Kim Sun-il.

During parliamentary hearings on Friday, Ban said he had received information from the National Intelligence Service that Kim's company, Gana Trading, might be susceptible to terrorist attacks and conveyed the warnings on two occasions to Gana's president, Kim Chun-ho.

But according to Ban, the company chief had refused to pull his workers out of the troubled Gulf state.

Kim Chun-ho, for his part, has said that upon learning of Kim Sun-il's disappearance, he attempted to contact the abductors through his Iraqi lawyer, thinking it would be a faster way of rescuing his employee.