"Scoundrel, bastard, scumbag!" spat Zhirinovsky after lawyer Yury Kostanov attempted to hand over a court summons asking him to appear in court Jan. 31 for a libel hearing with Stepashin, the head of the Federal Counterintelligence Service.
"We will destroy you!" Zhirinovsky added, before swooping on three television cameramen filming the encounter.
He told them to switch off their cameras and called a German cameraman a "German pig."
When Andrei Generalov from the liberal faction Russia's Choice told the ultranationalist to stop shouting, Zhirinovsky's loyal acolyte Vladislav Marychev seized him by the lapels of his jacket and pushed him against the wall.
Onlookers and Duma guards then intervened to rescue Generalov.
The mild-mannered Kostanov said he had twice sent a summons to Zhirinovsky, once to his home address and once to his Duma office. But, he said, both times the summons had been sent back.
He said the hearing on Jan. 31 could now legally take place without Zhirinovsky's presence.
Stepashin sued for libel after Zhirinovksy called him an "agent of Mossad" and said that his organization was a "sub-branch of the CIA" from the floor of the Duma on Nov. 18.
Stepashin is asking for a full apology and 100 million rubles ($26,600) in damages.
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