Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (born 26 June 1963) is a Russian businessman. In 2005 he was put in prison for not paying taxes.^[1] On 20 December 2013 Putin let him out of prison. He lives in London, having been more recently convicted in absentia of murder for hire.

Khodorkovsky on December 22, 2013 after his release from prison

Early life

Khodorkovsky was born in Moscow to a Jewish father and Russian mother. He went to the Mendeleev Chemistry and Technology Institute.

Once the richest man in Russia

In 2003, Khodorkovsky was named Person of the Year by Expert, sharing this title with Roman Abramovich and, in 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia and one of the richest people in the world, ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Khodorkovsky accumulated wealth by developing Siberian oil fields. He was the head of Yukos, one of the largest Russian companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets in the 1990s.

He was arrested on 25 October 2003. 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. This destroyed most 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.

Khodorkovsky was pardoned by President Vladimir Putin following lobbying for his release by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and released from jail on 20 December 2013.^[2]