In a statement following his release, Khodorkovsky said he asked Putin to pardon him on November 12, "and I am glad his decision was positive. He went on to personally thank those who followed his case and supported him and said he was "constantly thinking of those who continue to remain imprisoned.
Putin signed an amnesty decree for Khodorkovsky, a former Yukos oil tycoon, earlier in the day. The signature came a day after Putin announced that he planned to pardon Khodorkovsky. The oil magnate, who backed an opposition party, had been in prison since and was convicted in of tax evasion and fraud. He was due for release in Former German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher apparently was involved in the release, saying he met twice with Putin to discuss the case.
Genscher also arranged the flight on a private jet from Russia and picked Khodorkovsky up at the airport in Berlin. But while most complied, Khodorkovsky refused. He was convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison in , while a second trial ended in with an embezzlement conviction , prompting Western governments to accuse the Kremlin of pursuing selective justice.
Khodorkovsky, who been due to be released in August , remained a strong critic of the Russian president throughout his jail term. Analysts viewed the decision as a clever step ahead of the Sochi Olympics. Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning. Take international news everywhere with you! During and after his trials, Yukos' stock plummeted, erasing much of Khodorkovsky's wealth and bankrupting the company.
Rights group Amnesty International declared him a " prisoner of conscience. Khodorkovsky's presidential pardon was announced on Friday Khodorkovsky left the prison colony in the northwestern Russian region of Karelia, and boarded an aircraft headed for Berlin, where he spent his first night in freedom in ten years at the exclusive Hotel Adlon, a few meters from the Brandenburg Gate.
This decree comes into force from the day of its signing," said the decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and published by the Kremlin. Khodorkovsky is remembered as "the quietest and calmest" of all the so-called Russian oligarchs, who held sway over Russia's political and economic establishment, said Matthias Schepp, head of the Moscow office for the German newsmagazine "Der Spiegel.
But the business man did not keep himself out of politics. He and other oligarchs helped former President Boris Yeltsin win re-election in , at a time when Yeltsin was quite unpopular in Russia, Schepp told DW. Within a few years, Khodorkovsky built Yukos into the largest oil company in Russia. There were even rumors he would politically challenge Vladimir Putin.
Khodorkovsky denied that he harbored political ambitions, but he did finance the liberal opposition. Putin publicly accused Khodorkovsky of corruption at a public meeting in the beginning of A tense exchange of words followed and a few months later the Yukos executive was arrested.
Initially, Khodorkovsky was held in custody in Moscow, he was then later moved to a Siberian penal colony, where the former billionaire sewed mittens.
He was then moved to a prison camp in the small town of Segezha in the Karelia region, some 1, kilometers north of Moscow, where he sewed mittens together as his prison job, and from which he was finally freed. Khodorkovsky, who turned 50 this year, has spent one-fifth of his life behind bars. Writing has been one way of getting though each day. Khodorkovsky writes analysis of the Russian domestic politics and even takes a look into the future of mankind.
Schepp said Khodorkovsky's "determination or stubbornness" remains unchanged and he described the ex-oligarch as someone with a very strong view and who is unwilling to give in.
According to press reports, Khodorkovsky is said to have had the opportunity to plead guilty and be released to emigrate abroad. The Russian opposition was joined by human-rights groups and Western countries in describing his conviction as politically motivated.
His second trial came under particular international criticism.
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