MOSCOW, July 5 (RAPSI) - The Interior Ministry plans to request a warrant for businessman Sergei Polonsky's arrest in absentia if he does not answer the investigators' summons by August, a representative of the ministry's press center told RIA Novosti on Friday.

Polonsky has been officially charged with embezzling over 5.7 billion rubles ($176.2 million) from participants in the Kutuzovskaya Milya cooperative residential construction project.

"If Polonsky fails to show himself in Russia by the end of July and continues to hide from the investigation, the Interior Ministry's Investigative Department will request the court to issue a warrant for arrest in absentia. If the court grants the request, we will put Polonsky on the international wanted list," the spokesperson said.
On June 20, lawyer Diana Tatosova said Polonsky was hoping to become an Israeli national. It is rumored that he is already in Israel.

Israeli Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum said the fact that someone is being investigated, especially in connection with an economic crime, is not a reason to deny a Jew's right to Israeli citizenship.

Polonsky has also clashed with the law in Cambodia.

Late last December, he and two other Russians, Konstantin Baglay and Alexander Karachinsky, allegedly attacked the six-person crew of a boat ferrying them from a Cambodian island to Sihanoukville. The sailors later dropped the charges.

The three Russians 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.