Dutch Diplomat Beaten in His Moscow Apartment
16 October 2013 | Issue 5236
The Moscow Times
Minister-president / flickr
Russian delegation during state visit to the Netherlands in April 2013, with Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Frans Timmermans and PM Mark Rutte (left).
The Netherlands is seeking answers from Russia after a Dutch diplomat was beaten by unidentified assailants in his apartment in Moscow.
The diplomat — identified by Russian media as Onno Elderenbosch, deputy chief of the Dutch embassy in Moscow — was returning home on Tuesday when he saw that the elevator in his building was out of order, Life News reported. After walking up to his fourth-floor apartment, he spotted two men dressed as electricians who were working on a fuse box.
The men told him that the electricity seemed to be out in the whole building and said that they wanted to check if lights were on in his apartment. Once the diplomat opened the door, the men pushed him inside and proceeded to beat him, ransack the apartment, and draw a heart symbol pierced with an arrow and the letters "LGBT" in lipstick on a mirror in the hallway.
Elderenbosch was lightly injured in the attack, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Roman Kolodkin, the Russian ambassador to the Netherlands, to answer questions about the attack.
"Our people must be able to work there safely and I want the assurance that the Russian authorities also take their responsibility on that point," Timmermans wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.
The latest incident came on the heels of the detention and reported beating of Dmitry Borodin, a minister-counselor of the Russian Embassy in The Hague by Dutch police who said that they were responding to a neighbor's complaint that children were being abused in the diplomat's residence. The Netherlands later apologized to Russia the breach of diplomatic immunity rules by its police.
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/dutch-diplomat-beaten-in-his-moscow-apartment/487960.html#ixzz2hs9b3bg7
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