The Russian tycoon behind the London Evening Standard and The Independent was acting like a good Orthodox Christian when he punched a rival businessman on TV, a former oligarch told a Moscow court yesterday.
German Sterligov, who was a guest on the same show, said that Alexander Lebedev had acted in a "normal masculine manner" when he hit Sergei Polonsky and that he did not take offence because "God blesses holy warriors". Mr Polonsky was probably "high" on drugs at the time, he added.
Mr Sterligov — who became a multimillionaire at the age of 24 during the dying days of the Communist era and then gave his fortune away to live like an ultra-Orthodox peasant — is perhaps the most colourful participant yet in an extraordinary trial.
Mr Lebedev is accused of "hooliganism motivated by political hatred". He believes that he will go to prison for up to a year despite the absence of compelling evidence to support the charges, possibly as revenge for investigations undertaken by his newspaper Novaya Gazeta against corrupt billionaires.
Mr Polonsky, a property magnate who should have been the main prosecution witness, has never shown up. His legal team maintain that he cannot appear because of his commitments to a court in Cambodia, where he has been accused of kidnapping sailors and forcing them to jump into the sea.
Mr Polonsky has, however, maintained a cyber-presence at the trial, posting photographs of himself relaxing by the seaside and firing threats and insults at Mr Lebedev via Twitter. He has called the former KGB officer a "double agent" and added: "I'm going to get you." Last night he posted a message on Twitter saying: "I will appear in your nightmares."
Mr Lebedev, speaking outside the courtroom yesterday, speculated that his victim's behaviour could be explained by drug addiction. "If he's a drug addict, we can't analyse him in a normal way," he said. "We should just feel sorry for him."
Drugs had been brought up earlier during Mr Sterligov's testimony when he said: "Polonsky didn't seem quite right. We noticed it straight away even before the recording began. I could be mistaken but it's likely he was very high then. He was hyperactive."
Mr Sterligov was the first witness to testify for the defence after a shambolic sequence of prosecution witnesses, including several whose only qualification was that they had half-watched the show on television in 2011.
Mr Sterligov tried to challenge Vladimir Putin for the presidency in 2004. He now lives surrounded by crops and livestock with his family in the wilderness 60 miles from Moscow. He said that Mr Lebedev had behaved calmly on the night of the show, whereas Mr Polonsky was "definitely" provocative, flailing his arms, insulting other guests and generally behaving strangely.
"There was a moment when Polonsky got close to me, very close and sort of reached towards me with an offer to massage me — if he had come a bit closer it would be me answering to the court today, not Lebedev," he said.
Asked by a defence lawyer for Mr Lebedev if he was surprised "by the fact that — as you put it — Polonsky could have been high", Mr Sterligov said: "No ... as far as I know it was quite a typical state for Polonsky."
Mr Sterligov left the show before the punches but said he thought that they were justified by the prolonged insults that Mr Polonsky had aimed at Mr Lebedev on the night.
The case will resume on June 21.
