Once Russia’s richest man, the 50-year-old looked pale and thin but happy in a photograph of him being greeted by German well-wishers on the tarmac after landing on a private jet.
President Putin, who surprised Russians and gave a brief lift to the stock market by announcing Khodorkovsky’s pardon on Thursday, said he was acting out of ‘principles of humanity’ because Khodorkovsky’s mother is ill.
A Russian government source said freeing his best-known and potentially most powerful critic could deflect international complaints about Putin’s human rights record as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics at Sochi in seven weeks’ time.
It also appeared to show that Putin is feeling confident in his control of the country after facing down street protests when he was re-elected last year.
Within hours of being released from Penal Colony No. 7 at Segezha, deep in the sub-Arctic forest near the Finnish border, Khodorkovsky was in the German capital and issued a statement confirming he had sought a pardon and had not admitted guilt.
‘I appealed to the Russian president on 12 November with a request for a pardon in connection with family circumstances,’ he said. ‘The issue of an admission of guilt was not raised.’
Putin’s spokesman said the Russian president had received two letters from Khodorkovsky - a long personal letter and the official pardon request. The pardon was granted unconditionally and Khodorkovsky was free to return to Russia, he said.
The former oil baron had been due to be released next August but supporters feared the sentence could be extended, as it was before. He spent the last few years working at the jail, in an area once part of Stalin’s Gulag labour camp system.
With a note of defiance, Khodorkvsky thanked wellwishers for their support ‘to me, my family and all those who were unjustly convicted and continue to be persecuted’.
In flying to Germany and possibly into exile on a hastily issued passport, Khodorkovsky was following a route taken by Soviet-era dissidents like ‘Gulag Archipelago’ author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was expelled to West Germany 40 years ago.
‘My father is free and safely in Germany,’ his son, Pavel Khodorkovsky, said on Twitter. ‘Thank you all for the support you’ve given my family over these years!’
Chinese billionaire feared dead in chopper crash
Bordeaux: Rescue teams scoured the Dordogne river in southwestern France Saturday after a helicopter carrying a Chinese tea tycoon overflying his newly-purchased vineyard went down.
The body of Lam Kok’s 12-year-old son was pulled out of the river late Friday and there was little hope that the businessman, the French winemaker who sold him his chateau and their interpreter could have survived.
On Saturday, four dinghies were scanning the water near the site of the crash as divers went under and police dogs combed the river bank.
Officials from the French gendarmerie - a paramilitary police force - said mangled parts of the chopper’s fuselage had been retrieved but said strong currents were complicating the search for the three missing.
The owner of the Brilliant group had celebrated his purchase of the Chateau de la Riviere, one of the region’s oldest estates, with a lavish event Friday.
After a press conference, an introduction to the staff and dinner, former owner James Gregoire was planning to take his buyer on a short tour of the 65-hectare (160-acre) vineyards and surrounding grounds.
Lam Kok’s wife pulled out at the last minute, saying she was ‘scared of helicopters’, said an AFP photographer at the event.
Gregoire meanwhile patiently carried out his pre-flight procedures, a check-list resting on his knees. When the four did not return after 20 minutes, employees at the vineyard contacted emergency services. In a bizarre twist of fate, a previous owner of the Chateau de la Riviere was killed in a plane crash in 2002. Gregoire bought the property, the largest in Bordeaux’s Fronsac wine-producing region and close to the prestigious Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, the following year.
Earlier Friday, the vineyard’s managing director, Xavier Buffo, told reporters the sale marked the largest Chinese investment in Bordeaux property to date.
President Putin, who surprised Russians and gave a brief lift to the stock market by announcing Khodorkovsky’s pardon on Thursday, said he was acting out of ‘principles of humanity’ because Khodorkovsky’s mother is ill.
A Russian government source said freeing his best-known and potentially most powerful critic could deflect international complaints about Putin’s human rights record as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics at Sochi in seven weeks’ time.
It also appeared to show that Putin is feeling confident in his control of the country after facing down street protests when he was re-elected last year.
Within hours of being released from Penal Colony No. 7 at Segezha, deep in the sub-Arctic forest near the Finnish border, Khodorkovsky was in the German capital and issued a statement confirming he had sought a pardon and had not admitted guilt.
‘I appealed to the Russian president on 12 November with a request for a pardon in connection with family circumstances,’ he said. ‘The issue of an admission of guilt was not raised.’
Putin’s spokesman said the Russian president had received two letters from Khodorkovsky - a long personal letter and the official pardon request. The pardon was granted unconditionally and Khodorkovsky was free to return to Russia, he said.
The former oil baron had been due to be released next August but supporters feared the sentence could be extended, as it was before. He spent the last few years working at the jail, in an area once part of Stalin’s Gulag labour camp system.
With a note of defiance, Khodorkvsky thanked wellwishers for their support ‘to me, my family and all those who were unjustly convicted and continue to be persecuted’.
In flying to Germany and possibly into exile on a hastily issued passport, Khodorkovsky was following a route taken by Soviet-era dissidents like ‘Gulag Archipelago’ author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was expelled to West Germany 40 years ago.
‘My father is free and safely in Germany,’ his son, Pavel Khodorkovsky, said on Twitter. ‘Thank you all for the support you’ve given my family over these years!’
Chinese billionaire feared dead in chopper crash
Bordeaux: Rescue teams scoured the Dordogne river in southwestern France Saturday after a helicopter carrying a Chinese tea tycoon overflying his newly-purchased vineyard went down.
The body of Lam Kok’s 12-year-old son was pulled out of the river late Friday and there was little hope that the businessman, the French winemaker who sold him his chateau and their interpreter could have survived.
On Saturday, four dinghies were scanning the water near the site of the crash as divers went under and police dogs combed the river bank.
Officials from the French gendarmerie - a paramilitary police force - said mangled parts of the chopper’s fuselage had been retrieved but said strong currents were complicating the search for the three missing.
The owner of the Brilliant group had celebrated his purchase of the Chateau de la Riviere, one of the region’s oldest estates, with a lavish event Friday.
After a press conference, an introduction to the staff and dinner, former owner James Gregoire was planning to take his buyer on a short tour of the 65-hectare (160-acre) vineyards and surrounding grounds.
Lam Kok’s wife pulled out at the last minute, saying she was ‘scared of helicopters’, said an AFP photographer at the event.
Gregoire meanwhile patiently carried out his pre-flight procedures, a check-list resting on his knees. When the four did not return after 20 minutes, employees at the vineyard contacted emergency services. In a bizarre twist of fate, a previous owner of the Chateau de la Riviere was killed in a plane crash in 2002. Gregoire bought the property, the largest in Bordeaux’s Fronsac wine-producing region and close to the prestigious Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, the following year.
Earlier Friday, the vineyard’s managing director, Xavier Buffo, told reporters the sale marked the largest Chinese investment in Bordeaux property to date.