Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling has been released from prison after serving 12 years for his role in the fraud scheme which sent the US energy giant into bankruptcy. Skilling, 65, had been most recently incarcerated at a reentry facility in Houston, Texas, according to the US Bureau of Prisons website. The Houston Chronicle reported that Skilling had been released on Thursday after completing 12 years of what was initially a 24-year sentence. It was eventually reduced on appeal.

A Harvard-educated whiz kid, Skilling once stood on the top rungs of America's corporate ladder and graced the pages of glossy business magazines. The native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and father of three was snapped up by Enron in the early 1990s following a stint as a consultant with McKinsey and Co.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019