This article was last updated on August 28, 2024
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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov stuck in France for 48 hours longer
The pre-trial detention of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been extended by 48 hours. The French Public Prosecution Service announced this. Durov was arrested on Saturday at Le Bourget airport and has since been detained on suspicion of twelve criminal offenses related to his messaging app.
The pre-trial detention was extended last night until Wednesday evening. After that, Durov must either be formally charged or released.
The arrest is part of an investigation by French justice into the messaging service with almost a billion users worldwide. The 39-year-old Durov ended up on a French wanted list because Telegram shares little or no information about its users and uses few moderators, giving criminals free rein.
Kremlin outraged
According to prosecutors, Telegram’s management is complicit in, among other things, the distribution of child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud, terrorism and money laundering, according to French broadcaster TF1.
The Russian government has reacted with outrage to the arrest of Durov, a Russian-born entrepreneur. A Kremlin spokesman called the arrest “politically motivated” and “proof of the West’s double standards” when it comes to freedom of expression.
The arrest led to expressions of sympathy for Durov in Moscow. Russians placed folded airplanes, the symbol of Telegram, at the French embassy.
The Russian anger is surprising among critics of the Kremlin, because the Russian government wanted to block Telegram in 2018. That plan was withdrawn in 2020.
French President Macron said yesterday that Durov’s arrest “is in no way a political decision” but part of an independent judicial investigation. On
Dubai
Telegram was founded in 2013 by Pavel Durov together with his brother Nikolai. They are also the founders of VK, the Russian version of Facebook. Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing a government request to close certain opposition channels on VK. He now lives in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In addition to an Emirates passport, Durov also has Russian and French nationality and also that of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the archipelago in the Caribbean Sea.
The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry says it is closely following Durov’s case and has asked France to provide him with the necessary consular assistance. The Russian embassy in Paris says consular staff were not allowed in because French authorities treat Durov primarily as a French citizen.
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