Telegram founder Pavel Durov released from jail on $5 million bail, faces criminal charges

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was released from prison on Wednesday but was charged with six counts related to alleged illegal activity on the social media app and banned from leaving France.

PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — Pavel Durov, co-founder and CEO of Telegram, has been released from prison on bail but is not allowed to leave France and must report to French police twice a week.

On Wednesday, August 28, Durov was released on a bail of 5 million euros (5,537,620 USD). However, French authorities have also charged Durov with six counts relating to alleged illegal activities on the popular messaging app.

Politico quotes the press release from the Paris prosecutor’s office, which says the charge includes complicity in managing Telegram “to facilitate an illegal transaction in an organized group.”

Durov would also have been charged with “complicity in the crimes of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed for… organized gang distribution of images of minors presenting child pornography, drug trafficking.”

READ: Telegram founder tells Tucker Carlson that US intelligence agencies tried to spy on user messages

Telegram “features in multiple cases involving various crimes (child sexual abuse, human trafficking, online hate),” the prosecutor said, emphasizing “Telegram’s almost total failure to respond to judicial requests.”

“When consulted, other French investigation departments and prosecutors, as well as several Eurojust partners, notably Belgian ones, shared the same observation,” the French prosecutor added. “This led… to the opening of an investigation into the possible criminal liability of the managers of this messaging service.”

A French judge will now further investigate these charges.

The prosecutor also reported that a preliminary investigation into Telegram and its co-founder had been opened in February. Politico reports that French authorities issued arrest warrants for both Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai in March.

Durov’s lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski said: “The only statement I would like to make is that Telegram complies with every aspect of European standards in the digital field. It is absurd to think that the head of a social network is being charged.”

READ: Arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov signals growing threat to digital freedom

Durov, a Russian, French and UAE citizen, was arrested on August 24 after his private jet landed at Le Bourget Airport. His arrest sparked outrage and concern among prominent free speech advocates such as Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, and has led to diplomatic tensions between France, Russia and the UAE, with the latter two backing Durov.

French President Emmanuel Macron denied allegations that Durov’s arrest was politically motivated.

“The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation,” Macron wrote on X. “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on it.”

However, if one of the main concerns of the prosecution is child abuse and human trafficking, allegedly facilitated via Telegram, as it has stated, then other social media platforms should also be charged. Reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal revealed that social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, knew its platforms were being used to facilitate child sexual exploitation but failed to fix the problem. Yet Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has faced no legal consequences.

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