The lawyer of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov slams the investigation, calling it ‘totally absurd.’
Telegram boss representative in the French court, lawyer David-Olivier Kaminsk, while talking to several media outlets on Thursday, August 29, dismissed all the allegations against Durov and said the social media platform abides by all the rules, reported Reuters.
The lawyer told the reporters, “It's totally absurd to think that the head of a social network could be involved in criminal acts that do not concern him, either directly or indirectly. Telegram fully abides with European rules on digital.”
The French judge on Wednesday put the Telegram boss, who was arrested on Saturday at the airport near, into a formal investigation for the alleged illicit activities on his social media platform.
Durov is accused of illicit transactions, images of child abuse, drug trafficking, and money laundering.
The 39-year-old was granted bail for 5 million euros ($5.6 million) after spending four days in police custody, but he cannot leave French territory.
Meanwhile, Durov has Russian, French, and UAE citizenship, so the Russian foreign ministry believed that the French authorities took him under custody due to diplomatic tension between Russia and France.
