Speaking via video link from his cell in a Moscow prison, Russian property tycoon Sergei Polonsky – who was deported from Cambodia in May to face fraud charges in his native country – announced he had cancer, proposed to his girlfriend and damned his persecutors all in one hearing.

Polonsky, who is under investigation for embezzlement, said yesterday that prison doctors had diagnosed the disease a few weeks ago.

“My life belongs to God, because it turned out 20 days ago that I have cancer,” he said, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

After going on a minutes-long tirade against the courts and the media for unfairly targeting him, Polonsky then proposed to his girlfriend, Olga Deripasko.

She accepted, writing after-wards on her Facebook page that she felt “tears of sorrow and of joy at the same time”.

The hearing at the Moscow City Court was held after Polonsky’s lawyers appealed against his pretrail imprisonment, arguing for house arrest.

The court dismissed the appeal.