MOSCOW, May 23 - RAPSI. Eyewitnesses of banker Alexander Lebedev's assault on businessman Sergei Polonsky were picked up randomly on the street, one of the eyewitnesses, Yulia Komashina, said at a hearing at Ostankinsky District Court in Moscow.

The initial charges of hooliganism and battery against Lebedev were made last September, over a year since Lebedev punched Polonsky during a TV program on the state-run NTV channel. The scuffle ensued after Polonsky accused Lebedev of spreading a rumor about a crack in the Moskva-City skyscraper that his firm was building.

"Someone just came up to me in the street and asked if I had seen the episode of the NTVshniki TV show where a politician beat up another guest. When I said I remembered seeing it, he suggested that my testimonial be recorded as evidence for the case," Komashina said, adding that the person did not say they were an employee of the Investigative Committee.

Another eyewitness, Natalia Parkhomenko, said in court that she had gone to the Investigative Committee to deal with another issue. However, she was asked if she remembered the show and was assigned as a witness.

Both of the witnesses who saw the incident on television were asked to describe the argument between Polonsky and Lebedev, the assault and their opinion of the incident. The women called the fight outrageous. The third witness, a member of the TV audience, said an incident like that was quite ordinary for a political TV show "because they are always fighting in the State Duma."

The witnesses claim they were brought to court by force, which disrupted either their work or exams.

Cameramen from the show also testified in court but said they did not see the fight as they were filming other sections. They did not listen to the discussion either, but they recalled that "Polonsky said something rude and hostile. It was uncalled for."

"The scene was filmed so badly you can't see if there was a fight. If it were me filming you would have seen blood and torn jeans," cameraman Oleg Tikhomirov said.

Lebedev, 52, is the co-owner of the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper and the owner of the UK's The Independent daily. He has also supported a program to raise funds for opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption project RosPil. He has made repeated claims of a campaign of persecution against his businesses in Russia by the government, a charge that the authorities deny.

In early January, Polonsky himself ended up in another fracas in Cambodia, when he and two other Russians allegedly attacked local sailors during an outing off the Cambodian coast. The sailors later dropped their charges.

The three men were arrested on Dec. 31 and remained in the custody of the Cambodian police.  On April 3, Polonsky was released from the Cambodian prison but restricted from leaving the country.