BRUSSELS, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The Netherlands will return the head of a 19th-century Ghanaian king who was executed by Dutch colonists, Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk said on Friday.

    A Dutch author discovered four years ago that the head has been kept in a Dutch hospital. He was doing research for a book about the life of two Ghanaian princes in the Netherlands and made the discovery in the archives of Leiden University, Radio Netherlands reported.

    The author, Arthur Japin, informed the Ghanaian ambassador to the Netherlands of this. Ghana demanded the return of the missing head in October 2008.

    From the mid-17th century until 1872 the Dutch had a number of fortified trading posts along the Ghanaian coast, protected by Dutch garrisons. Ghanaian King Badu Bonsu II was hanged by Dutch colonialists in 1838, who later cut off the king's head and sent it to the Netherlands, Radio Netherlands said.