BERLIN, December 22, 15:51 /ITAR-TASS/. Former CEO of the Russian oil corporation YUKOS, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said at a news conference behind closed doors in Berlin Sunday he was glad over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to pardon him.
Along with it, he said he does not find himself to be guilty of anything.
“The authorities have always wanted me to recognized guilt on my part but this demand has always been unacceptable for me,” Khodorkovsky told a selected group of newsmen who had spoken out in support of him previously. He stressed once again the absence of any admission of guilt on his part in the petition for pardoning he had submitted to the presidential office.
Khodorkovsky about the role of media attention
Khodorkovsky said on Sunday that media attention had had its role in his release. “My main aim is to express gratitude. I understand perfectly well that if it had not been for efforts of very many people in our country and all over the world, I would not have been here,” he said at a news conference.
“My release became possible thanks in no small part to mass media. Mass media lets very many people who are in Russian prisons unjustly to stay alive, keep up health and hope for the release,” he said.
About future plans
Khodorkovsky told a selected group of reporters here Sunday that he did not know in practical terms his current financial capability. He said along with it that he would not be purchasing football clubs but he had enough money for a living. “I don’t actually know my financial capability at present but I have enough money to make a living,” he told ‘soul-mate’ reporters who supported him when he was in imprisonment. He also said he would return to Russia if he got the confidence that he would be able to leave its territory for trips abroad. Khodorkovsky confirmed that the authorities did not put forward recognition of guilt as a precondition for his release from jail.