Freed billionaire Khodorkovsky helping other dissidents making pledges of further organized support for others jailed in Russia dictatorship gulag system

Khodorkovsky to stay out of Russia, help jailed

AFP – Russia’s former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said Sunday after walking free from a decade in jail that he would stay away from his homeland but help to free Russian political prisoners still behind bars. In an astonishing turn of events, the Kremlin critic surfaced in Germany hours after his release on Friday from a prison in an obscure corner of northern Russia, following a pardon by President Vladimir Putin.

Mobbed by reporters at his first news conference in Berlin barely two days since leaving jail, Khodorkovsky admitted he had been given no choice over his final destination and thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for aiding his liberation. Khodorkovsky, formerly Russia’s richest man, said he had no intention of becoming involved in Russian politics and could not return to the country so long as a court order for him to pay $550 million in damages was still in place.

“A fight for power is not for me,” said Khodorkovsky, wearing a sharp business suit but almost shaven-headed, at the news conference held in the Berlin Wall museum at the symbolic Cold War location of Checkpoint Charlie.