Oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been released from prison following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s pardon, his spokeswoman has confirmed.
Khodorkovsky was freed after spending 10 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and embezzlement. His arrest in 2003 and the subsequent prosecution have been widely considered to be Mr Putin’s retribution for Khodorkovsky’s political ambitions.
Mr Putin first spoke about pardon after a news conference on Thursday, saying that Khodorkovsky has applied for the pardon because his mother’s health is deteriorating. The Kremlin’s website published a decree today saying that Mr Putin was “guided by the principles of humanity” when he decided to pardon Khodorkovsky.
Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man and the CEO of the country’s largest oil company when he was arrested on the tarmac of a Siberian airport and charged with tax evasion. Critics have dismissed the charges against him as a Kremlin vendetta for challenging Mr Putin’s power.
During Mr Putin’s first term as president, the oil tycoon angered the Kremlin by funding opposition parties and also was believed to harbour personal political ambitions.
His actions defied an unwritten pact between Mr Putin and a narrow circle of billionaire tycoons, dubbed “oligarchs,” under which the government refrained from reviewing privatisation deals that made the group enormously rich.
Khodorkovsky’s oil company Yukos was effectively crushed under the weight of a £17billion back-tax bill. Yukos was sold off. Most of it went to state oil company Rosneft, allowing the Kremlin to reassert control of the country’s oil business as well as stifle an inconvenient voice.
Khodorkovsky’s current net worth is unknown, but us likely to be at most a mere shadow of his one-time fortune.