Khodorkovsky applies for Swiss visa

MOSCOW: Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has applied for a visa to Switzerland less than a week after being released from decade-long imprisonment in Russia.
A spokesman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry says Khodorkovsky submitted the request at the Swiss embassy in Berlin.
The 50-year-old, a long-time critic of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, flew to Germany on Friday within hours of being pardoned.
Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Stefan von Below told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the three-month visa request would likely be processed in the coming days.
He declined to provide further details citing privacy rules.
Meanwhile, Khodorkovsky is set to reunite with his wife Inna and their three children in Berlin, his spokeswoman said.
“The family is coming today,” spokeswoman Olga Pispanen told AFP. “They have not been together for 10 years.”
Khodorkovsky, who has said he would stay out of Russia, is mulling a move to Switzerland where his twin sons go to school and would like to discuss that plan with his family, the spokeswoman said.
Khodorkovsky’s wife Inna and their three children, who are believed to have been in Moscow when Khodorkovsky flew to Berlin, have had to sort out their travel documents before going to Germany. “My family is my main treasure and we are together despite the years, kilometers and barbed wire,” Russia’s one-time richest man has said in one interview from prison. He said he had seen lots of lonely people in prison and felt “ashamed” because he had a great family.
“In the lottery of fate I won big time,” he said, stressing his wife was waiting for him.
“I would not be able to exist without her. She is one half of my heart.” On Saturday, Khodorkovsky reunited with his elderly parents, Marina and Boris, and his eldest son Pavel, his child from his first marriage.