The day was busy for Ukrainian Security Service men as they, too, vainly tried to serve the summons. They asked Ivan Rybkin into an office room, entrance barred to newsmen, as soon as he finished a news conference. Top-notch investigator Nikolai Lelyuk was serving the summons, as far as Novosti knows.
"Mr. Rybkin did not receive any summons," said Ksenia Ponomareva, chief of his pre-election staff, after her boss left the room.
Igor Grebennik, second in charge of the Security Service organized crime and corruption squad, had brought the summons to hotel Premier Palace, he said to the media.
The Prosecutor General's officers intend to question Rybkin as witness on a kidnap case launched on his own application. He appeared on the police list of missing persons, early February. It was a sheer misunderstanding as he had been staying all the time with friends in Kiev, it was announced, February 10. Ivan Rybkin said something quite different a few days later - he had been forcefully kept in Ukraine under drugs for a few days. His statement made Ukraine's Security Service launch criminal proceedings.
As he said to today's news conference, Mr. Rybkin had not received a summons. More than that, he ought to consult the Russian Prosecutor General's experts before making whatever statements to their Ukrainian counterparts. He is flying back to Moscow tonight for the purpose.