Mikhail Khodorkovsky: A vodka for the KGB man who freed me
BOJAN PANCEVSKI THE TIMES DECEMBER 22, 2013 2:46PM
Mikhail Kasyanov, Russia's Prime Minister at the time of the 2003 arrest of tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, reacts to Khodorkovsky's sudden release from prison. Mana Rabiee reports.
A file photo of Mikhail Khodorkovsky looks from behind a glass enclosure in a court room in Moscow, Russia. AP
Pavel Khodorkovsky in Berlin after being reunited with his father, former oil baron Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Picture: AP Source: AP
OVERJOYED but exhausted, the former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky was reunited with his family in Berlin yesterday after 10 years in a labour camp as details emerged of the secret German diplomacy that led to his dramatic release.
Khodorkovsky, 50, once the richest man in Russia, met his son and elderly parents at the luxury Adlon hotel overlooking the Brandenburg Gate. It was a dramatic contrast to Penal Colony No7 in the sub-Arctic forest near the Finnish border, from where he was freed following a pardon by President Vladimir Putin.
One of Khodorkovsky's first acts after his arrival in the German capital was to share a bottle of vodka with the man who had negotiated his release. Then he went shopping at Louis Vuitton.
"After 10 years it's an unbelievable feeling of freedom," Khodorkovsky wrote in The New Times, a Moscow magazine. "The most important thing is freedom, freedom, freedom."
Sources close to Khodorkovsky denied rumours that he had cut a deal with the Kremlin leader or had been pressured into leaving Russia, but Marieluise Beck, a German MP and longstanding friend, said after meeting him for an hour: "A return to Russia is not on the agenda." He will probably settle in Switzerland where two of his four children are at school.
The unexpected freeing of Khodorkovsky was the result of diplomatic efforts by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 86, a former German foreign minister, who acted with the "full support" of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Genscher, one of the architects of German reunification in 1990, used his contacts in Moscow to hold two meetings with Putin and plead for Khodorkovsky's release during two years of intense behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
"It has been a long but successful effort but what matters is that Mr Khodorkovsky is finally free," Genscher told The Sunday Times.
"He looks exhausted but at the same time overwhelmed by emotions for being able to see his loved ones for the first time in 10 years."
Khodorkovsky's son, Pavel, who flew from New York, told reporters: "It was a great shock to see my father again today, a positive shock. He hasn't changed much and he looks fit. We are all very happy."
Khodorkovsky was due to give his account at a press conference today at the Berlin Wall Museum close to the former Checkpoint Charlie border crossing between the east and west of the once-divided city.
Genscher, who has known Khodorkovsky since the 1990s, said that he had been asked by the tycoon's lawyers to help with his release. A key role appears to have been played by Alexander Rahr, a German academic, political adviser and expert on Russia, who was recruited by Genscher to provide more access to the Kremlin's powerbrokers.
Rahr, 54, who knows Putin personally, welcomed Khodorkovsky in Berlin alongside Genscher and served as an interpreter for the two.
According to Rahr, the first two telephone calls Khodorkovsky made after landing were to his second wife, Inna, and his mother Marina, 79. She had been having cancer treatment in Berlin but had gone back to Moscow earlier this month. She returned to Berlin yesterday with his father, Boris.
Khodorkovsky would need "weeks" to get used to life in freedom, Rahr said: "He was overjoyed but collected - he's got a very strong character."
He later released a photograph showing him and Khodorkovsky drinking a vodka toast shortly after his arrival.
Khodorkovsky was released on Friday morning for what Russian authorities described as "humanitarian reasons" - an apparent reference to his mother's cancer.
His pardon followed a general amnesty ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi. Among those due to be released soon are two members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot and 30 Greenpeace activists who were arrested after a protest at a Russian Arctic oil rig in September.
Khodorkovsky was taken by helicopter to St Petersburg and then flew to Berlin on a private jet belonging to Ulrich Bettermann, a German-Swiss businessman and friend of Genscher. Arriving at Schonefeld airport in Berlin shortly after 3pm, Khodorkovsky was picked up by Genscher in a black BMW and driven to a suite at the Adlon that would normally cost almost pounds 2,550 a night.
In a sign of German government support, officials met Khodorkovsky upon arrival and issued him with a permit enabling him to travel to most European Union countries.
Yesterday (Saturday), after spending his first night in freedom, Khodorkovsky went shopping in a Louis Vuitton store in central Berlin.
His assets, once estimated at almost pounds 5bn, were confiscated by the Russian authorities after Yukos, his oil company, went bankrupt following a tax investigation in 2003.
After a controversial trial condemned by foreign governments, he was sentenced to nine years in 2005. This was extended after fresh charges at a second trial in 2009.
German media speculated that he still has money in Swiss accounts after reports that he would travel to Switzerland following his stay in Berlin.
After his release Khodorkovsky issued a statement to say he had asked Putin on November 12 to pardon him due to his "family situation", but insisted he never admitted to any guilt.
He added that he was constantly thinking of "those who continue to remain imprisoned" - an apparent reference to his co-accused, Platon Lebedev, who is due to complete a sentence for embezzlement and money laundering in May.
There was speculation that Putin decided to pardon Khodorkovsky, who was due to be put on trial again in 2014, in an attempt to persuade Merkel to attend the Sochi Games, from which Joachim Gauck, the German president, and other heads of state are staying away.
Rahr said Putin, who had been a KGB agent in East Germany during the 1980s, wanted to improve Russia's relations with Merkel: "It is not empty talk when he speaks about wanting a strategic partnership with Germany."
