Paris-Le Bourget Airport, as soon as Paris’ main airport, now homes solely basic aviation for personal and enterprise flights into the French capital, and is the place Telegram app CEO Pavel Durov was arrested by police on Saturday. (Reuters)
French prosecutors on Wednesday handed preliminary expenses to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, alleging that he allowed legal exercise on the controversial messaging app.
The costs got here hours after Durov was launched from custody following his arrest at Le Bourget airport exterior Paris over the weekend as a part of a sweeping investigation opened earlier this yr.
Investigative judges additionally ordered the 39-year-old to pay 5 million euros (about $5.5 million) bail and to report back to a police station twice every week, prosecutors mentioned. He’s barred from leaving France pending additional investigation.
Pavel Durov, CEO and co-founder of Telegram, speaks onstage throughout a convention in San Francisco on Sept. 21, 2015. (Steve Jennings/Getty Pictures for TechCrunch / Getty Pictures)
Allegations in opposition to Durov, who can also be a French citizen, embrace that his platform is getting used for baby sexual abuse materials and drug trafficking, and that Telegram refused to share info or paperwork with investigators when required by regulation.
The primary preliminary cost in opposition to him was for ”complicity in managing an internet platform to permit illicit transactions by an organized group,” against the law that may result in sentences of as much as 10 years in jail and a 500,000-euro wonderful, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
Free-speech advocates and authoritarian governments alike have spoken out in Durov’s protection since his weekend arrest.
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In Russia, the place Durov was born, some authorities officers have denounced his arrest as politically motivated and proof of the West’s double commonplace on freedom of speech.
French authorities opened a preliminary investigation in February in response to ”the close to complete absence of a response by Telegram to judicial requests” for data for pursuing suspects, notably those accused of crimes against children, the prosecutor’s office said.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov delivers his keynote address during the Mobile World Congress in Spain on Feb. 23, 2016. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that Durov’s arrest wasn’t a political move but part of an independent investigation. Macron posted on X that his country “is deeply dedicated” to freedom of expression but “freedoms are upheld inside a authorized framework, each on social media and in actual life, to guard residents and respect their elementary rights.”
Telegram said it abides by European Union laws, including the Digital Services Act.
“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to cover and travels often in Europe. It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor are liable for abuse of that platform,” the company said. “Virtually a billion customers globally use Telegram as technique of communication and as a supply of important info. We’re awaiting a immediate decision of this case. Telegram is with you all.”
Along with Russia and France, Durov can also be a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
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Telegram was based by Durov and his brother after he himself confronted strain from Russian authorities.
In 2013, he bought his stake in VKontakte, a preferred Russian social networking website which he launched in 2006. The corporate got here beneath strain through the Russian authorities’s crackdown following mass pro-democracy protests that rocked Moscow on the finish of 2011 and 2012.
FOX Enterprise’ Jasmine Baehr and The Related Press contributed to this report.
