KHARTOUM: A Spanish national working at his country’s embassy was found Monday stabbed to death at his home in Khartoum, Sudanese police said, with the Foreign Ministry speaking of a “crime.”

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the body of the 61-year old consular official was found in his apartment in the upscale Garden City suburb of Khartoum on Monday. He has been a resident of Khartoum for three years, the ministry said. The statement did not give the diplomat’s name.

The Ministry said it has opened an investigation into the matter and is initiating appropriate legal and technical procedures.

It is uncommon for diplomats to be targeted in Sudan. The motive behind the stabbing was not immediately clear.

Police identified the victim as the head of the visa section at the Spanish Embassy. The victim was 61 and had been living in Sudan for three years, police said, adding that he was found dead at his residence at dawn in Khartoum’s eastern district of Garden City.

The police and the Foreign Ministry said an investigation was under way.

“The police force of Khartoum state and its teams of special criminal investigators have launched a probe in order to find the perpetrator or perpetrators as soon as possible,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“The Foreign Ministry is confident that the perpetrators of this crime will be found,” it added.

The ministry described the man’s death as a “regrettable incident that took place at dawn” on Monday.

“The Foreign Ministry expresses its condolences to the Spanish Embassy, and the family of the departed, for their painful loss,” it said.

A Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the man was the head of the visa section at the embassy “but did not have the status of a diplomat.”