MOSCOW, July 12 (RAPSI) - Alexander Lebedev's lawyers have appealed against the court ruling which sentenced the banker to 150 hours of correctional labor for punching businessman Sergei Polonsky during the filming of an NTV talk show, Genri Reznik told RAPSI on Friday.

"We have filed a complaint asking the Moscow City Court to reverse the ruling of the Ostankinsky District Court and to acquit Lebedev," he said. "We insist that he is not guilty."

The Ostankinsky District Court announced the sentence on July 2.

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.

On June 28, Polonsky appealed to the court to forgive Lebedev for punching him, according to a statement on his Facebook account.

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.

Polonsky, once one of Russia's wealthiest men, has been officially charged with embezzling over 5.7 billion rubles (around $175 million at the current exchange rate) from participants in the Kutuzovskaya Milya cooperative residential construction project in Moscow.

If found guilty, he could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.

Polonsky's whereabouts are uncertain. He was until recently on bail in Cambodia, where he was arrested together with two Russian friends, Konstantin Baglay and Alexander Karachinsky, on December 30, 2012 for attacking the six-person crew of a boat ferrying them from a Cambodian island to Sihanoukville.

In April Polonsky was released from the Cambodian prison, but was forbidden 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.