“Khodorkovsky was sent to a prison camp,” a security source told the Itar-TASS news agency without elaborating on the exact location of the camp.

Both Khodorkovsky’s wife and his lawyers were earlier denied a meeting with the jailed former Yukos chief on the pretext that he is being prepared for departure.

Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev have been in prison since 2003 and were in December convicted of a second set of fraud charges.

Ahead of the second trial, Khodorkovsky was transported in February 2009 from the Siberian prison camp outside Chita where he was serving his first sentence to a Moscow detention facility where has been ever since.

Khodorkovsky had requested parole on May 27 after serving half of his prison sentence. It is not clear if he will return to Chita or another facility.