by Admin
Aug 28, 2024
The French police have handed the Telegram president, Pavel Duro to the French court, after withholding the Russia-UAE citizen in detention for three days.
The handover was done earlier today by the French police after they arrested the Telegram owner at Paris’s Le Bourget airport on Sunday night after Pavel got back from Azerbaijan. The arrest was led by Investigators from France’s National Anti-Fraud Office, with a search warrant from OFMIN, an investigative agency that fights child sexual exploitation in France, this was revealed by France News Agency.
The 39-year-old billionaire was charged with multiple offenses: terrorism, drugs, complicity, fraud, money laundering, receiving stolen goods, and pedo criminal contents. Pavel, who rarely travels around Europe due to situations like this, landed in France to refuel his private jet before he was arrested by the French authorities.
Pavel, who was under pre-trial detention for the last three days after his arrest on Sunday, will now face France’s judicial system which will now determine if the tech billionaire will be remanded in prison or will be set free and possibly under judicial control with restrictions on his movements.
Prodesq news agency learned that a confidential investigation team was set up on the 8th of July to probe 12 criminal charges that were set against the Telegram owner.
The 39-year-old tech mogul was a Russian citizen until 10 years ago when he had issues with the Russian government over his platform which has 900 million users, Pavel is now a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and also a citizen of France and has always been a personality who keeps a low profile and rarely grants an interview, his last known interview was in Dubai office with American journalist Tucker Carlson.
The telegram president who is currently worth $15.5 billion has been a frequent visitor of French President, Emmanuel Macron who has come out publicly to denounce that the arrest of Pavel has nothing to do with political ties which he referred to as “false information” in his post on his personal X account, Macron said Durov’s arrest was “in no way a political decision” and it was “up to the judges to rule”.
Russia has released a statement through the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying the charges were very serious and thus needed “no less serious evidence”. He further referred to the arrest of Pavel as an act of intimidation from the French government “Otherwise this would be a direct attempt to restrict freedom of communication, and, I might even say, directly intimidate the head of a large company,” he said.
The UAE has also issued a statement saying it is closely monitoring the situation and is making all efforts to establish a communication line with Pavel.