A team of South Korean missionaries who spent six weeks as hostages of the Taleban returned home from Afghanistan yesterday, amid a growing controversy about a multi-million pound ransom allegedly paid for their release.

Despite relief at the safe delivery, South Korean public opinion remains divided about the handling of the crisis by the government and the conduct of the missionaries themselves, who ignored warnings about the dangers of evangelising in such a conflict-stricken and devoutly Islamic country.

“We went to spread God’s love and carry out his wishes,” the group said in a statement read out at Seoul’s Incheon Airport as they bowed their heads.

Alongside them were photographs of two of their number who were murdered in captivity. “All of us returned from being on verge of death and have been given our lives back. All of us owe a big debt to the country and the South Korean people.

“When thinking about the trouble we have caused them, it is proper for us to bow deeply and ask for your forgiveness. We apologize to the people for creating this anxiety, and to the government for this burden.

“We express our gratitude to the people of Korea.”

Afterwards they were welcomed home in two contrasting ways. A group of Korean Protestants applauded them, brandishing placards with the words, “Brothers and Sisters, you have done nothing wrong. Do not hold your heads in shame.”

While one man had to be restrained by the police as he attempted to pelt the missionaries with eggs.

The 19 missionaries were freed in two batches last week by Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan, 43 days after being kidnapped from a bus in which they were travelling from the city of Kandahar. Two women had been released a fortnight before, but two men, including the group’s pastor, had earlier been murdered by their captors.

There was no capitulation to the kidnappers’ first demand, that the Afghan government release Taliban prisoners. But journalists in Afghanistan quoted Taliban sources who claimed that a ransom, valued at between two and 20 million dollars, had been secretly paid by Seoul.

The South Korean government denies this but, according to its official explanation, the Taleban released their captives without gaining any new concessions, a scenario that many in Afghanistan find far-fetched.

South Korea has promised to withdraw it contingent of 200 soldiers by the end of the year, a decision which had already been announced and scheduled. It will also ban missionaries from travelling to Afghanistan - but this was already official government advice.

Many Afghans criticised their own government for authorising direct negotiations with the Taliban. “This was a game which ended in the favour of the Taleban, from the very beginning to its end,” Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan MP, told Agence France Presse.

Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, the foreign minister, said: “In short, this deal gives the Taliban legitimacy, publicity and identity.

“If the impression is created now that the international community and the Afghan government allow themselves to be blackmailed, then this sends a very dangerous message.”

The head of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, Kim Man Bok, denied that any money had been paid. In its intensive coverage of the crisis, the South Korean media paid fascinated attention to the “sunglasses man”, an unidentified South Korean, assumed to be an intelligence agent, who was repeatedly seen alongside Afghan government officials and Taleban negotiators,

The missionaries were reunited with their families at a hospital where they were to undergo medical check ups. The government has confirmed that it will ask them to repay the cost of their return first class air fares and medical treatment, and there has been widespread criticism of the Saemmul Church, in the suburbs of Seoul, for dispatching them to Afghanistan.

“Saemmul Church is at the centre of a war against our will,” its pastor, Park Eun Jo, said in a message to parishioners yesterday.

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