“He indirectly admitted (guilt. -
RT
), he indirectly admitted in a letter to me and asked to let him go ahead of time, because his mother was sick and dying,” Putin said.
As the head of state noted, he agreed to this and pardoned, so that Khodorkovsky could communicate with his mother.
In March, Putin in an interview with TASS called Khodorkovsky a swindler.
In 2005, co-owners of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev were found guilty under six articles of the Criminal Code.
They were sentenced to nine years in prison, later reduced to eight years.
Khodorkovsky was pardoned by decree of the Russian president in December 2013.