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Switzerland: Visa Granted to Pardoned Russian Tycoon Swiss Give Visa to Freed Russian Oil Tycoon
(about 4 hours later)
Switzerland has granted a three-month visa to the former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, entitling him to visit the country where his wife has reportedly lived for at least part of the decade that he spent in Russian jails, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Embassy in Germany said Monday. The application for the visa was made last Tuesday, and the visa was collected Monday, said Alexandra Baumann of the Swiss Embassy. She declined to confirm that Mr. Khodorkovsky’s wife, Inna, and the couple’s twin sons live in Switzerland. Mr. Khodorkovsky was freed so suddenly from jail in Russia after being granted clemency by President Vladimir V. Putin that Germany, which used back channels to broker the deal, had issued only an entry permit for a hastily issued Russian passport. BERLIN — Switzerland has granted a three-month visa to the former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, entitling him to visit the country where his wife has reportedly lived for at least part of the decade that he spent in Russian jails, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Embassy said Monday.
The application for the visa was made last Tuesday, and the visa was collected on Monday, said Alexandra Baumann of the Swiss Embassy. She said that was not an unusually swift procurement and declined to confirm that Mr. Khodorkovsky’s wife, Inna, and the couple’s twin sons live in Switzerland.
A statement on Mr. Khodorkovsky’s website said he was “very grateful to the Swiss authorities for the speed and efficiency with which they have dealt with his visa application.”
“So soon after his decade of unjust imprisonment, Mr. Khodorkovsky is delighted that Switzerland will be the second country in which he can breathe the air of freedom,” the website said.
Mr. Khodorkovsky was freed so suddenly from jail in Russia after being granted clemency by President Vladimir V. Putin that Germany, which used back channels to broker the deal, had issued only an entry permit for a hastily issued Russian passport.
Once Russia’s wealthiest man, Mr. Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003 after an increasing confrontation with Mr. Putin’s Kremlin. He was sentenced in two cases that centered on his oil company Yukos, which has now been largely dismantled, much of it reconstituted as Rosneft, the oil company run by Mr. Putin’s ally Igor Sechin.
After his arrival in Berlin on Dec. 20, Mr. Khodorkovsky said he would stay out of day-to-day Russian politics — though he has commented on various developments, including last week’s release of two anti-Putin members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot — and would not seek to recover any shares of Yukos. He and his family have been staying at a luxury hotel in Berlin.
The Swiss visa covers Switzerland and the 25 other nations covered by the Schengen agreement between European countries on visa-free travel. It includes most major countries on the Continent, with the notable exception of Britain.
Mr. Khodorkovsky’s business partner, Platon Lebedev, who was tried with him, remains in a Russian jail. The Khodorkovsky website on Monday posted a somewhat cryptic message that it said came from Mr. Lebedev.
“The coming year promises to be interesting to say the least,” it said. “I may be one of the first ones to find out what this coming year has in store, and then I will tell you about it.”
Mr. Lebedev is scheduled to be released in May.