MOSCOW, June 28 (RAPSI) - Businessman Sergei Polonsky has appealed to the court to forgive banker Alexander Lebedev for punching him, according to a statement on his Facebook account.

The initial charges against Lebedev were made last September, more than a year after he punched Polonsky. The scuffle ensued after Polonsky accused Lebedev of spreading a rumor about a crack in the Moscow City skyscraper that his firm was building.

Lebedev has been accused of hooliganism and battery.

He has not admitted his guilt and said the charges are unsubstantiated.

Lebedev said he punched Polonsky during the filming of an NTV talk show to neutralize his aggression.

The prosecutor earlier asked the court to sentence Lebedev to 21 months of custodial restraint.

"I am asking the court not to pass a guilty verdict on Lebedev because he will not survive in prison and a fine will not be sufficient punishment for him. I therefore ask the court to forgive him his unbalanced behavior," Polonsky wrote on Facebook. 

He has also asked the court to register the termination of his agreement with lawyers Alexander Dobrovinsky and Vadim Samsonov, who refused to read out his appeal to the court, due to the impossibility of further association.

Lebedev, 53, is the co-owner of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and the owner of The Independent. He supported a program to raise funds for opposition leader Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption project RosPil and has also made repeated claims about a persecution campaign against his businesses by the Russian government, a charge the authorities deny.

Late last December, Polonsky ended up in a fracas in Cambodia, when he and two other Russians allegedly attacked the six-person crew of a boat ferrying them from a Cambodian island to Sihanoukville. The sailors later dropped their charges.

Polonsky and two other Russian nationals, Konstantin Baglay and Alexander Karachinsky, were arrested on December 31. Baglay and Karachinsky were released on bail on March 11, 2013. 

On April 3, Polonsky was released from the Cambodian prison but was restricted from leaving the country.

He later reportedly traveled to Israel. On June 20, lawyer Diana Tatosova said Polonsky is hoping to become an Israeli national.