The Salesian priest who was captured by Islamic State was crucified on Good Friday, a cardinal confirmed.

The Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil, a Salesian priest, was kidnapped in Yemen in early March during a raid on a nursing home run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

His execution by the Islamist sect, using the same method used by the Romans on Jesus and marked on Good Friday every year, was confirmed at the Easter Vigil Mass by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna.

The Salesian community is still to confirm whether Fr Tom has been killed.

Father Uzhunnalil was a native of India and had been the object of both prayers and diplomatic efforts since the March 4 raid where 16 Christian nuns and nurses were killed.

Bishop Paul Hinder, who heads the Catholic Church in Yemen, said the Missionaries home had been the object of numerous threats but they refused to leave.

Pope Francis already had honoured the slain nuns as martyrs.

Kidnapped priest to be crucified