Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Khodorkovsky with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, on 20 December 2002 Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Russian: Михаи л Бори сович Ходорко вский, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil xədɐˈrkofskʲɪj]; born 26 June 1963) is a Switzerland-based Russian exile, former Russian businessman and oligarch. He is also a philanthropist, public figure, author and columnist. In 2003, Khodorkovsky and Roman Abramovich were jointly named as Person of the Year by Expert. In 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia (with a fortune of over $15 billion) and one of the richest people in the world, ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires. He had worked his way up the Komsomol apparatus during the Soviet years, and started several businesses during the period of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the mid-1990s, he accumulated considerable wealth through obtaining control of a series of Siberian oil fields unified under the name Yukos, one of the major companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the 1990s (a scheme known as "Loans for Shares"). He was arrested on 25 October 2003, to appear before investigators as a witness, but within hours of being taken into custody he was charged with fraud. The government under Vladimir Putin then froze shares of Yukos shortly thereafter on tax charges. The state took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse of the company's share price and the evaporation of much of Khodorkovsky's wealth. He was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison in May 2005. While still serving his sentence, Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev were further charged and found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering in December 2010, extending his prison sentence to 2014. After Hans-Dietrich Genscher's impassioned lobbying for his release, President Vladimir Putin pardoned him, releasing him from jail on 20 December 2013. There was widespread concern internationally that the trials and sentencing were politically motivated. The trial process has received criticism from abroad for its lack of due process. Khodorkovsky lodged several applications to the European Court of Human Rights, seeking redress for alleged violations by Russia of his human rights. In response to his first application, which concerned events from 2003 to 2005, the court found that several violations were committed by the Russian authorities in their treatment of Khodorkovsky. In particular, the court ruled that Khodorkovsky's arrest was "unlawful as it had been made with a purpose different from the one expressed". Despite these findings, the court ultimately ruled that the trial was not politically motivated, but rather "that the charges against him were grounded in 'reasonable suspicion'". He was considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. Upon being pardoned by Vladimir Putin and released from prison at the end of 2013, he immediately left Russia and has since lived in Switzerland where he was granted residency. At the end of 2013, his personal estate was believed to be worth, as a rough estimate, $100–250 million. At the end of 2014, he was said to be worth about $500 million, with him insisting on $100 million.