You're reading: Russian media magnate Lebedev goes on trial

MOSCOW, May 7 (Reuters) - Russian media magnate Alexander
Lebedev said as he went on trial on Tuesday that he expected to
be jailed over a televised punch-up which he says is a pretext
to punish him for criticising the Kremlin.
 

 Lebedev, wearing a dark suit and white sneakers with black
laces, spent only a few minutes in court before the trial was
adjourned until May 20 after Sergei Polonsky, the man he is
accused of punching, failed to show up.
              The financial backer of Britain’s Independent and London
Evening Standard newspapers acknowledged he was involved in a
brawl while recording a television chat show in 2011 and denies
charges of hooliganism and political hatred.
              If convicted, he could face up to five years in jail.
              He says the case is President Vladimir Putin’s revenge for
his criticism of the government and a warning to other rich
Russian businessmen known as oligarchs.
              “It’s the government that’s against me,” Lebedev told
reporters outside the Moscow courtroom.
              The powerfully built multi-millionaire jumped out of his
chair and hurled punches at property developer Polonsky after he
goaded Lebedev as they recorded a television talk show. Polonsky
was knocked backwards and off the studio podium.
              Lebedev, who co-owns Russia’s main campaigning newspaper
with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, says he acted in
self-defence.
              “If you were attacked by a bully, sworn at obscenely and
threatened with being hit in the face, would you be upset about
it?” he asked reporters.
              Denying the charges against him, he said, “Even if I
overestimated the threat, I definitely did not cause anyone any
damage, did not commit any act of hooliganism and did not show
any political hatred.”
              Adjourning the hearing, Judge Andrei Bakhvalov said a ban on
Lebedev travelling outside the country would be temporarily
lifted because he has to attend another unspecified court case.
              PUTIN DENIES MANIPULATING COURTS
              Lebedev, 53, is rare among oligarchs in speaking out against
the Kremlin since the imprisonment of oil tycoon Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, who was arrested in 2003 after he fell out with
Putin. His Yukos oil company was broken up and sold off.
              Lebedev says his own case is part of a broader clampdown on
Putin’s opponents, and accuses criminal investigators of acting
on the Kremlin’s orders to punish him for campaigning against
corruption and showing sympathy with the opposition.
              Lawyers for Polonsky, a one-time billionaire, have described
Lebedev as a fantasist. But Polonsky could also go to jail – he
was detained in Cambodia in January, accused of assault and
illegal detention after an incident on a boat there.
              Putin referred to Lebedev’s behaviour as “hooliganism” soon
after the punch-up, playing on many Russians’ resentment of the
oligarchs who made vast fortunes as most others struggled during
and after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
              Putin, who began a third term a year ago after the biggest
protests since he first rose to power in 2000, has denied using
the courts for political ends even though several opponents face
criminal charges which they also say are politically motivated.
              Lebedev, a former KGB spy, made billions trading stocks and
bonds but his 2012 net worth was estimated at $1.1 billion by
Forbes and he is no longer on the magazine’s billionaires list.
              His business interests in Russia include a bank, National
Reserve Corporation, real estate assets and a potato farm.