Senior Dutch diplomat beaten up in Russia: official

A senior Dutch diplomat at the Netherlands embassy in Moscow was beaten up at his home in the Russian capital by unknown individuals who scrawled the letters "LGBT" on a mirror, AFP reports citing officials. The incident comes amid growing tensions between Russia and the Netherlands over the arrest by the Russian authorities of the 30 crew of a Dutch-flagged Greenpeace ship campaigning against oil drilling in the Arctic. The deputy head of the Netherlands mission in Moscow, Onno Elderenbosch, was approached at his home by men who presented themselves as electricians who then beat him up, Russian news reports said. The intruders who broke in to his flat took nothing but scrawled the letters LGBT (standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) and a drawing of a heart, the Interfax news agency quoted a security source as saying. The diplomat, 60, was not badly harmed and did not seek medical attention, the report added. Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans confirmed the attack on his Facebook page, saying that Elderenbosch was assaulted by two intruders. He said he had called the diplomat, "who is now doing fine". Tensions between Russia and the Netherlands surged last week when police in the Hague detained a Russian diplomat over accusations he was mistreating his children. The Netherlands later apologised for breaching the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.