The Netherlands stepped up diplomatic pressure on Belgrade Tuesday after confirming that four men detained there on suspicion of attempting to kidnap or kill the Yugoslav president are all Dutch nationals.
The foreign ministry said it had formally protested to Belgrade over the lack of information on the men, who were detained in mid-July, and has summoned the Yugoslav charge d'affaires to appear at The Hague on Wednesday.
Yugoslav information minister Goran Matic claimed Monday that the four Dutchmen had confessed to planning to kidnap or kill Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic or another indicted war criminal.
Until now, the Dutch defense ministry had only confirmed that one of the arrested men -- 31-year-old Ger Johannes Antonius de Rie -- was a Dutchman.
Foreign ministry spokesman Bart Jochems told AFP that the remaining three detainees were also Dutch and named them as Sander Zeitsen, Jeroen van Iersel and Bas van Schaik. They are aged between 28 and 32.
According to Matic, the group was arrested at Mehov Krs, at the border between Montenegro and Serbia, "right before the G8 summit in Okinawa" which began on July 21.
The minister said the men, whom he claimed had been trained by the British SAS (Special Air Services), planned to "deliver a Serbian head" to the summit.
Matic also showed a film of the four in which they said their plan was "to kidnap an important person" and "claim a reward" from the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The alleged assassination attempt comes shortly before parliamentary and presidential elections, planned for September 24, during which Milosevic will stand as the presidential candidate for the ruling Socialist Party – HAGUE (AFP)
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