WASHINGTON: French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday the arrest over the weekend of tech giant Telegram’s top official was not a political decision by his government as a broad investigation swirls over the the popular messaging app’s use and questions over his arrest days ago.
“The arrest of the Telegram president on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,“ Macron wrote Monday morning local time in a translated post on X, United Press International (UPI) reported.
“This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”
Telegram’s 39-year-old billionaire chief executive Pavel Durov was arrested by French police Saturday night after his private jet landed just north of Paris at Le Bourget Airport as part of an open probe that began July 8 into allegations over Telegram’s complicity in things such as the sharing of child pornography, drug trafficking and organised crime.
Durov is accused of failing to take steps to curb criminal uses of Telegram. But prosecutors in Paris say the investigation was opened “against an unidentified person” and not specifically Durov, who holds dual French citizenship and remains in custody.
In a statement, Telegram officials told POLITICO that Durov had “nothing to hide” as the tech company claimed that it has abided by European law.
Durov – who was born in Russia, lives in Dubai and holds dual citizenship in France and the United Arab Emirates – has allegedly failed to cooperate with law enforcement officials as they contend he, likewise, has failed to moderate Telegram’s content.
French prosecutors say the Centre for the Fight Against Digital Crime and the National Anti-Fraud Office had been notified of the investigation, and that Durov’s detainment had been extended on Sunday by a judge to last an extra 96 hours until Wednesday.
Macron pointed to “false information” being spread about Durov’s arrest, stating his belief that it is up to the judicial system with “complete independence, to ensure that the law is respected.” France is “more than anything,“ the two-term president said, “attached to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation and to the spirit of enterprise. It will remain so.”
Telegram, which has more than 900 million users, is a popular messaging app used by a wide range of people and ranks behind other global social media platforms such as Facebook, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Durov founded Telegram in 2013 and left Russia one year later after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VKontakte social media platform, which he sold.
Last year in October, Durov set out to block channels on the platform that called for violence after anti-Israel protesters stormed an airport terminal and runway in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Muslim-majority Dagestan Region bordering the Caspian Sea to the east and Azerbaijan to the south where at least 60 people were arrested and nine police officers injured.
Durov’s arrest had caught the ire of the likes of whistleblower Edward Snowden and billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of X.
The Russian embassy in Paris issued a statement on social media saying it had asked for clarifications about Durov’s arrest but had not heard back from French officials.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova previously posted on Telegram asking whether Western human rights non-governmental organisations would be silent on Durov’s arrest, after they criticised Russia’s decision to “create obstacles” to the work of Telegram in Russia in 2018.
“In a state governed by the rule of law, on social networks as in real life, freedoms are exercised within a framework established by law to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights,“ Macron said Monday.
