PARIS, August 28. /TASS/. French investigators did not question Pavel Durov in the case of suspected abuse against his child after the founder of the Telegram messaging app was detained, the Paris prosecutor's office told to TASS.
That case "has nothing to do with the current investigation," according to the prosecutors.
"He has not been questioned in that other case," the prosecutor's office said.
The office declined to comment on the details of the investigation, saying it reached out to Switzerland to see if they had put in place a "legal procedure."
AFP reported, citing a source, that the Service for the Protection of Minors, known as OFMIN, of the French National Police started an investigation into Durov over suspicions that he was violent with one of his children.
According to the report, he allegedly applied "serious violence" on one of his minor children, born in 2017, when he lived in Paris. The boy now lives with his mother in Switzerland. In 2023, she filed a complaint in that country about the alleged incident.
Forbes earlier reported that the Swiss authorities are investigating Durov in connection with the statements by Irina Bolgar that the entrepreneur allegedly beat one of their three children. According to the report, a lawsuit was filed in Geneva in March 2023. She also filed a civil lawsuit for custody of the children, accused the Telegram founder of refusing to meet with the children in September 2022 and pay 150,000 euros every month to support them.
Forbes wrote that a court in Geneva initially dismissed the case because at that point more than three months had elapsed since Durov's alleged use of violence. Bolgar filed an appeal in May 2023, and in October the court agreed to accepted the case for consideration. A court spokesperson told Forbes that the case is still open. It alleges, among other things, that Durov harmed the youngest of the children, causing a concussion and sleep disruption. Attached as evidence to the case are correspondence between Durov and Bolgar from November 2021, as well as a medical report from April 2023.
Durov’s detention
Durov was detained at the Le Bourget airport outside Paris on August 24. The next day his detention was extended to 96 hours. Prosecutor in Paris accuse him, among other things, of complicity in drug trafficking, crimes against children and fraud, essentially treating him as an associate of the people that commit these and other offenses using Telegram.
His pretrial detention ended on Wednesday evening and the entrepreneur was brought to a court that is set to rule on a potential indictment and the measure of restraint, or decide to drop the case.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Durov's detention is not political and called to wait for a court decision. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said France’s stance on the issue shows that the values, including freedom of speech, that the country previously upheld are being destroyed, rather than ignored.
The Russian Embassy in France told TASS that it plans to protect Durov's rights and seek consular access to him, but "the French side has so far avoided engagement on this issue.".