MOSCOW, October 27 - RAPSI, Natalia Belova. The court has postponed until November 1 its hearing of a defamation lawsuit filed by billionaire Alexander Lebedev and his National Reserve Bank (NRB) against the Kommersant publisher, the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI) reports from the courtroom.

The plaintiff seeks 11 million rubles ($360,000) in damages.

Lebedev seeks the court order to force the Kommersant newspaper to refute information that the NRB was prosecuted for embezzling funds allocated to bailout the Rossiysky Capital bank. The story was published in the April 26 issue. It alleged that investigators initiated a criminal case for large-scale fraud in August 2010, the NRB's offices were searched and Lebedev was interrogated as a witness.

The NRB's lawyers earlier told the court that charges had been brought against Rossiysky Capital bank's former Chairwoman Irina Kireyeva in the criminal case related to the assets stripping.

The Moscow Commercial Court postponed the case to allow the claimant to study the documents and present his case.

The defendants in the case are Kommersant journalists Daria Yurishcheva, Yekaterina Sobol and Yelena Kiselyova.