Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a pardon for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who at 9:20am Italian time today left the penal colony where he was being held. Thus ends, with the release of the most famous and politically influential Russian prisoner, a particularly opaque page, to put it mildly, in Russia's recent history.
Until 2003 Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia, the sixteenth in the world rankings, and owned Yukos, the oil giant rival of the state company Gazprom. That same year he was arrested and in 2005 he was convicted of tax fraud, at the end of a trial unanimously considered a political trial, used by Putin to get rid of a cumbersome character who, for some time now, had also begun to demonstrate own interest in a descent into politics.
In 2010, as his first sentence came to an end, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to an additional 7 years in prison, on charges of stealing oil from his own partner. During the trial, the tycoon delivered a famous speech on the state of things in Russia, in which he denounced the arbitrary use, once again in the history of the country, of justice and power.
In the eyes of many, the pardon granted by Putin to Khodorkovsky, as well as the amnesty voted a few days ago (which will also restore freedom to the Pussy Riot activists), seem an attempt to improve the image of the country and its political management ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics.
