Paris: French prosecutors said Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was freed from police custody on Wednesday after four days of questioning over allegations that the platform is being used for illegal activities including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images. Durov will be brought to a court for a first appearance that will decide his fate, said the Paris Prosecutor's office.
“An investigating judge has ended Pavel Durov’s police custody and will have him brought to court for a first appearance and a possible indictment,” a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Durov was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport in France on Saturday after arriving from Azerbaijan.
Under French law, Durov can be held in custody for questioning for up to 96 hours after the arrest. Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Durov’s police custody order was extended on Monday evening for up to 48 hours. After that, authorities must release or charge him.
Why was Durov arrested in France?
Durov was detained in France as part of a judicial inquiry opened last month involving 12 alleged criminal violations, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. It said the suspected violations include complicity in selling child sexual abuse material and in drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized crime transactions and refusing to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai. According to Telegram, Pavel Durov supports the app “financially and ideologically while Nikolai’s input is technological." However, French investigators have also found the app has been used by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
Telegram is based in Dubai, which Durov called “the best place for a neutral platform like ours to be in if we want to make sure we can defend our users’ privacy and freedom of speech" in an April interview with conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson. After Durov's arrest, Telegram said it abides by the EU laws, including the ‘Digital Services Act’. "It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform," it said in a statement.
If convicted, Durov faces up to 20 years in prison. Western governments have often criticised Telegram for a lack of content moderation, which experts say opens up the messaging platform for potential use in money laundering, drug trafficking and the sharing of material linked to the sexual exploitation of minors.
Response to Durov's arrest
Durov's arrest has sparked outrage in Russia, with some government officials calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double standard on freedom of speech. The outcry has raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics: In 2018 Russian authorities themselves tried to block Telegram but failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said relations between Moscow and Paris have reached a new low after Durov's arrest. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday that Russia was ready to provide Durov with all necessary assistance given his Russian citizenship, but that his French citizenship complicated the situation.
Elsewhere, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X who has called himself a “ free speech absolutist,” has been speaking out in support of Durov and posted ”#freePavel” following the arrest. With close to 1 billion users, Telegram is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. The platform has become crucial to battlefield communications in the war in Ukraine and is used by governments and soldiers on both sides of the war to share war-related news and propaganda.
(with inputs from agencies)
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