Updated

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the onetime Russian oil tycoon who was imprisoned for a decade in a politically tinged case, says he doesn't intend to get involved in politics now that he has been pardoned and released.

President Vladimir Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky on Friday, and hours later he flew on a private jet to Berlin. Khodorkovsky had been imprisoned for tax evasion and money-laundering. The cases were widely criticized as political revenge; Khodorkovsky funded opposition parties and was believed to have personal political ambitions.

In an interview published Sunday on the website of the Russian newspaper Novoye Vremya, Khodorkovsky is quoted as saying that in his pardon application he said he did not intend to get involved in politics or seek the return of the assets of his dismantled Yukos oil company.