iloubnan - Estonia confirms men in YouTube video are kidnap victims - April 20, 2011

Estonia's foreign ministry confirmed Wednesday that seven men seen begging for help in a video posted on YouTube were the tourists from the Baltic state abducted last month in Lebanon.

"The men in the video are the seven Estonians kidnapped in Lebanon," ministry spokeswoman Minna-Liina Lind told AFP.

The video, uploaded to YouTube late Tuesday, showed the men begging Lebanese, Saudi, Jordanian and French leaders to help them. The men did not give their names.

Lind confirmed that the video had also been sent to the ministry on Tuesday night.

"Several institutions are dealing now with the question of finding out from where the video was posted onto the Internet. We do not wish to comment from which email address we got the video," she said.

The seven men, who were on a cycling holiday, went missing on March 23 in the eastern Bekaa Valley after entering Lebanon from Syria. The motive for their abduction remains unclear.

Eleven Lebanese were charged last week with the kidnapping.

A previously unheard of group, Haraket Al-Nahda Wal-Islah (Movement for Renewal and Reform), has claimed responsibility and demanded an unspecified ransom to free the men. The claim has not been authenticated by security officials.

Authorities have said the Estonians may have been moved across the porous border to Syria.

The video appeared online hours after Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet wrapped up a trip to Lebanon, where he said there were no new leads on the men's fate.

He travelled on to Abu Dhabi for a meeting of European Union and Gulf Cooperation Council nations.
"It appears from the video that all seven abducted Estonian citizens are alive and well. However, it is not known when the clip was recorded," Paet said in a statement Wednesday.

"The message did not include the conditions of the victims' release, any demands, or information on who is behind the abduction," he underlined.

Speaking to reporters in Tallinn, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said: "No requests have been presented to Estonian authorities in regard of the kidnapping".

But Andres Anvelt, a former police officer turned Estonian lawmaker, questioned that.

"This video gives the impression that demands have been already presented," Anvelt told the website of the Estonian newspaper Postimees.

"It's significant who the kidnappers are addressing via the video, and that they are demanding that what has been asked be fulfilled. I have the impression that the video was made to press the public and get what the kidnappers have demanded," he said.

Abductions have been rare in Lebanon since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war during which nearly 100 foreigners, mostly Americans and western Europeans, were kidnapped.