 When Khodorkovsky's mother was in a Berlin hospital with cancer in November 2013, Genscher passed a message to Khodorkovsky suggesting the prisoner should write a pardon letter to Putin emphasizing his mother's ill health.Following Putin's pardoning of Khodorkovsky "for humanitarian reasons" in December 2013, a private plane provided by Genscher brought Khodorkovsky to Berlin for a family reunion at the Hotel Adlon.Genscher signed on in 2014 to be a member of the Southern Corridor Advisory Panel, a BP-led consortium which includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Peter Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International.