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Khodorkovsky sought pardon under pressure from special services: report

Ex-oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for a pardon under pressure from security services, the Kommersant newspaper reported Friday.

Putin on Thursday stunned Russia by saying the country’s most famous prisoner, who has been in jail since 2003, had asked for clemency on humanitarian grounds, saying his mother was ill.

The former chief of Yukos oil company, once Russia’s richest man, had repeatedly said he would not ask Putin for pardon because it would be tantamount to admitting guilt.

Putin’s announcement came as Russia is coming under increasing international scrutiny of its rights record in the runup to hosting the Winter Olympic Games in February.

Citing unnamed sources, Kommersant said representatives of Russia’s security service had recently spoken to Khodorkovsky.

They told him his cancer-stricken mother’s health was worsening and warned him about a possible third criminal case against him, the newspaper said.

“This conversation, which was conducted without lawyers, forced Mikhail Khodorkovsky to turn to the president,” said the newspaper.

He is now expected to be released by the end of the year, the report said.

Putin’s announcement caught Khodorkovsky’s legal team and even his family off guard.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP that the request for a pardon was signed by Khodorkovsky, indicating that he personally submitted it.

Khodorkovsky had been due to be released in August 2014 but Russian prosecutors earlier this month raised the threat of a third trial for the former tycoon on money-laundering charges.

Putin told reporters on Thursday that he saw no prospects for the third case.

Khodorkovsky’s imminent release after more than 10 years in jails on fraud and embezzlement convictions made front-page news in Russia.

“God, he had mercy!” said a banner headline in mass-circulation newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Vedomosti business daily dismissed the move a public relations stunt.

“So far it is difficult to imagine that the PR effect from Khodorkovsky’s pardoning would heal the wounds inflicted on the economy and society 10 years ago,” the daily said.

“A system built 10 years ago will continue to work in the future. Khodorkovsky personally no longer presents a threat to the system.”