World leaders welcome Putin's decision to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky

World leaders welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to pardon former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Ekho Moskvy reports on Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is "happy" that Khodorkovsky is finally out of prison. The British and the US authorities also hail President Putin's decision to release the former billionaire from jail.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also welcomes the presidential pardon and stresses that the EU has been paying special attention to the Khodorkovsky case for the whole ten years.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky was imprisoned in 2003. He was found guilty of tax evasion 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.

The case was condemned as politically motivated by the Russian opposition, the EU and the US, since Khodorkovsky was a vocal opponent of President Putin and even supported opposition parties financially.

Khodorkovsky was freed on Friday and immediately left for Germany. He is expected to host a press conference at the Berlin Wall Museum on December 22.