Market Data 
PARIS (Reuters) – A lawyer for Telegram boss Pavel Durov, who is the target of an unprecedented investigation in France, said on Thursday that it was “absurd” to suggest the head of a social network was responsible for any criminal acts committed on the platform.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said the arrest of the Russian-born tech boss, which has further strained relations between Paris and Moscow, should not turn into “political persecution.”
A French judge put Durov under formal investigation on Wednesday, saying he was suspected of complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, images of child sex abuse and drug trafficking. He is also being investigated for alleged money laundering and the refusal to cooperate with judicial authorities.
Durov, who spent four days in police custody following his arrest on Saturday at an airport near Paris, was granted bail on condition he pays 5 million euros ($5.6 million) and does not leave French territory.
Durov will also need to report twice a week to police of the town where he’ll be staying. He will have to be home at certain specific hours, a judicial source said, without saying where he would live or how many hours a day he would need to be there.
His arrest has fuelled debate on where freedom of speech ends and enforcement of the law begins, and to what extent tech companies should be held responsible for social media content. Telegram is used by close to a billion people.
It’s “absurd to say that a platform or its boss are responsible for any abuse” carried out on the platform, lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski, who is representing Durov in France, said, in comments to reporters carried by several local media outlets.
Being placed under formal investigation in France does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates judges consider there is enough evidence to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or shelved.
Durov has French, UAE and Russian citizenship, and his arrest and the allegations against him have taken the relationship between France and Russia to a new low, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, capping months of deteriorating relations.
“The main thing is that what is happening in France does not turn into political persecution,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday. “We know that the president of France has denied any connection (of the case) with politics, but on the other hand, certain accusations are being made. We will see what happens next.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, who is known to be an avid user of Telegram, said earlier this week that Durov’s arrest was “in no way a political decision” and that the probe had been decided by judicial authorities, not by the government.
Macron had lunch with Durov in 2018 as part of a series of meetings with tech entrepreneurs, a source close to the president said, and Durov was granted French citizenship in 2021 under a rare procedure for high-profile individuals.
The United Arab Emirates is in touch with French authorities and representatives of Emirati citizen Pavel Durov, a government official said on Thursday.
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