Russia demands access to Telegram founder following his Paris arrest

The Russian embassy in France has demanded consular access to Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov and demanded his rights be ensured, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sunday.

Durov is to appear in court on Sunday after being arrested at a Paris airport for offences related to his Telegram messaging app, sources told AFP.

The Russian embassy said France has so far "avoided engagement" on the situation with Durov, who co-founded Telegram. Russian diplomats are in contact with Durov's lawyer, the embassy said.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday Durov miscalculated by fleeing Russia and thinking he would never have to co-operate with security services abroad.

Medvedev related a conversation he had with Durov several years ago in which Medvedev told him that if he did not want to co-operate with law enforcement agencies then he would have problems in any country.

"He miscalculated," Medvedev said. "For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous."

Durov was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening and had been travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.

TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram and that police considered this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.

The encrypted Telegram, with close to one billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.

Russian-born Durov founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VKontakte social media platform, which he sold.

"I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone," Durov told U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson in April about his exit from Russia and search for a home for his company which included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.

The Russian foreign ministry said its embassy in Paris was clarifying the situation around Durov and called on Western non-governmental organisations to demand his release.

Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order to grant state security services access to its users' encrypted messages.

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