MOSCOW, May 24 (RAPSI) - The Ostankinsky Court of Moscow has refused to accept the written testimony about a beating involving banker Alexander Lebedev, sent by businessman Sergei Polonsky from Cambodia, RAPSI reports from the court.

On Friday Polonsky's attorneys submitted three statements by their client to the court. In two of them he asks the court to hear the case in his absence because he cannot come to Russia. The third statement includes his written testimony.

However, the court only accepted those statements which were certified by the Russian consul in Cambodia and refused to accept Polonsky's testimony because it had not been properly certified.

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.

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

In early January, Polonsky himself ended up in another 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 and remained in the custody of the Cambodian police. 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.