Russian presidential hopeful Rybkin says he was drugged and kidnapped

[DuctapeFatwa]

Russia's presidential hopeful Ivan Rybkin, who mysteriously disappeared for five days, said Friday that he was drugged, kidnapped and kept unconscious by captors who had lured him to Ukraine....on the understanding that he would be meeting Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov for peace negotiations...driven to an apartment....had some tea and some sandwiches and suddenly I felt very drowsy..woke up in yet another totally unfamiliar apartment..unconscious for four days and regained consciousness on February 10, when he was told to telephone family or friends in Moscow to say he had taken a short break in Kiev.

He said his captors then "showed me a revolting video tape with my participation and they told me it was a plan to compromise me and force me to be cooperative."
"I don't know who kidnapped me, but I know for whose benefit it was done," Rybkin said, without elaborating. He would not be drawn on the contents of the tape he mentioned, saying only: I'm not going to comment on the video tape, it was done to compromise me."

Rybkin had disappeared days after making explosive allegations about Russian President Vladimir Putin's supposedly shadowy business dealings..."To be able to tell people the truth from now on, I will conduct my campaign from Western Europe," he said..Reports and several top lawmakers suggested that Rybkin was on a drinking binge when he vanished..

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040213/1/3i07u.html

[JailForBush]

1. Big deal.

George W. Bush was probably drugged when he was (s)elected pResident.

[plurality]

2. I thought something was odd about his initial statement

that he had just gone to Kiev and not bothered to watch TV or listen to the radio.

Gotta love democracy in action.

[Ediacara]

3. Whoa....

This is potentially explosive. Not only was he kidnapped on the premise of secret peace negotiations with current Chechen president Maskhadov, but the former president of Chechnya was killed in a car bomb this morning, that looks to everyone but the Russian government, to have been done by the Russian government.

Maybe it's a coincidence, but something tells me the two are somehow related....

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Anyone found another source for this story ?

.
.

I followed it back to the original paper, (Agence France-Presses) and even there . .

there was no name as to who wrote it - :shrug:

I can't remember the last "news" article that did not indicate to who wrote the dammm thing

- heck not even a reference to an "editor" ??

I wanna see some REAL news on this before I buy even one word of it - -

and even then,

I wouln't put it past the BFEE to try to discredit Putin any way that they could - -

[Ediacara]

5. I can't find one for THAT story specifically

But on the Pravda website, there is a different story from yesterday, but much along the same lines.

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Ivan Rybkin: show must go on
02/12/2004 17:39



Candidate for President is inventing plausible explanation why he had disappeared for several days.

The interview Ivan Rybkin gave live to Echo Moskvi radio station turns his "Kiev adventures" in some sort of comedy. Ivan Petrovich used such colorful descriptions of the train guards and the people he encountered that it looked like he had visited not Kiev, but a carnival in Rio de Janeiro.

Debates of the Presidential candidates started in Russia on February 12. Co-Chairman of Rodina (Motherland) Bloc Sergey Glaziev, Oleg Malyshkin from LDPR, independent candidate Irina Khakamada and Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party) participate in the debates, the other candidates - Sergey Mironov, Vladimir Putin and Ivan Rybkin refused from debating.

Rybkin is preoccupied with other matters - he has to invent plausible version of his disappearance urgently. Law-enforcers who spent plenty of energy searching for him need his explanation. In addition, Rybkin"s boss Boris Berezovsky is waiting for his explanation as well. If Berezovsky becomes angry at Rybkin, he can stop sponsoring the politician.

More at the link above
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The story is written by Yegor Belous. The link to Belous is just a list of stories he has written, but does include an email address.