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Durov's French lawyers find errors, inaccuracies in case against him

"The authorities did not use the right procedures or the right communication channels," Christophe Ingrain said

PARIS, June 19. /TASS/. French prosecutors have not done their due diligence in the case against Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov, one of his lawyers, Christophe Ingrain, said.

"I’ve never seen this many legally questionable charges in a single case," he said. Ingren pointed to certain "peculiarities" in this case, one being the definition of "complicity" in crimes allegedly committed via the Telegram messenger platform.

"Complicity does not extend to inaction. It implies that the accomplice intentionally participated in the actions of the main perpetrators [criminal users of the platform], which is not the case here. Moreover, we still have no clarity on which specific crimes are being linked to money laundering, or who is supposed to be part of this criminal conspiracy they’re trying to tie our client to," he said.

The lawyer also lashed out with accusations of "amateurism" and "massive blunders" against the law enforcement agencies that sent Telegram requests and to which, according to investigators, the messenger’s administrators refused to respond to. Ingrain said that immediately after the entry into force of EU’s Digital Services Act Telegram created an email address, through which the authorities could send requests and complaints directly, but it was never used.

"The authorities did not use the right procedures or the right communication channels," he said.

Ingrain said that Telegram is "actively cooperating" with all authorities, but adheres to the principles of neutrality and secrecy of correspondence. According to him, 21 million accounts were blocked in 2024, including 28,000 in France. The prosecution insists that for a long time the messenger's admins did not respond to requests and began to do so only after Durov's detention in Paris.

On August 24 last year, Durov was detained on several charges, including complicity in the administration of a network platform to allow illegal transactions as part of a criminal group. Such an offense, according to the Paris prosecutor's office, can be punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros. By the decision of the investigating judge, the businessman was placed under judicial control with an obligation to pay a 5 million euro bail. He was also ordered to report to the police station twice a week and was forbidden to leave France without a permit.

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