Russian-born Telegram founder ordered to French court to face possible charges

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00:00We can bring in our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.

00:02Doug, great to see you.

00:04Durov's period in custody has come to an end.

00:06What exactly happens now?

00:08Ah, the tough questions.

00:09Yeah.

00:10Look, all that's really concluded right now is that the judge said

00:12the period of police questioning is over.

00:15The police had up to four days, 96 hours

00:18beyond the initial 25 hours after his arrest to question him.

00:22After that, they had to basically end that initial questioning

00:26and either free him or transfer him to a judge.

00:28Now, this judge, it's an investigative judge, is going to have to decide,

00:32this is a French magistrate, is going to decide whether to pursue the probe.

00:37That is to launch what is called a formal investigation.

00:40Now, doing so, if this judge and we're supposed to hear it later tonight,

00:44I think 8 p.m.

00:45Paris time, if the decision is yes, we believe that there is enough

00:49to go on from the initial police questioning to pursue a formal probe,

00:53a formal investigation.

00:54It doesn't imply guilt.

00:56It doesn't mean that he's guilty.

00:58It doesn't even imply that there's going to be a trial.

01:00It just means that they want to be able to investigate further.

01:05So that's really all we know at this time.

01:06Now, a pretrial detention is possible.

01:09Pretrial detention is just that.

01:11It would mean that he would literally be put back under arrest

01:14pending a further probe if perhaps he were deemed to be a flight risk.

01:19Now, you might speculate that, you know, there's a lot of hard

01:22bargaining going on behind closed doors and that if they even if they were

01:26to pursue this investigation further, they may not keep him in custody.

01:30They may not have the wherewithal to do so.

01:33And he might be just free to walk if they don't deem him to be a flight risk.

01:37There are a lot of tricky judicial questions.

01:39The French judicial system is not always very straightforward here.

01:44But what we do know is he's not out of the woods yet.

01:46And I'll tell you, you know, it's been obviously

01:48the center of attention, right, since his arrest,

01:50since Telegram became the center of this investigation,

01:54basically on charges that he allowed criminals to run rampant on his platform.

01:58Now, Durov is a Franco-Russian citizen.

02:01Yes, he is.

02:02From what we understand, he still has his Russian passport.

02:04And a United Arab Emirates citizen as well, UAE.

02:07Indeed. Now, Moscow has rushed to his defense after his arrest,

02:11but he's had a thorny relationship with Russia, hasn't he?

02:13I was going to say, if this were one of these Facebook statuses,

02:16it would be it's complicated.

02:18When it comes to Putin, the Kremlin and Durov.

02:20No, it has not been. It's been anything but straightforward.

02:23In 2014, Pavel Durov essentially, you know, it was a year in which he fled Russia.

02:29He was essentially forced into this self exile.

02:32Why? Because it was a time when Vladimir Putin was beginning

02:35to tighten the noose around the Internet, to crack down on the Internet.

02:38And part of that crackdown and that tightening of the noose

02:41was taking control of what was then the the VKontakte platform,

02:45which was the original platform set up.

02:47It was Russia's Facebook preceding Telegram.

02:50And the Kremlin basically took control of that after Pavel Durov reports

02:54had been at the time he refused to release data to Russian authorities.

02:59They had been seeking it on Ukrainian protesters.

03:02This is back in 2014.

03:04So he fled Russia back then, right?

03:06You presumably he was at odds with the Kremlin.

03:08But the irony is today, Telegram has become more important than ever,

03:11not just to pro-democracy activists who see it as a place to recruit

03:15and to organize and to plan and to discuss and to communicate,

03:19but also to the very governments that they're protesting against,

03:22who also use it in the case of the Russian military.

03:25And on the flip side, the Ukrainian military to communicate

03:28among small groups, to organize and to plan operations.

03:33Doug, authorities in France and Europe have had issues

03:36with other media platforms, social media platforms, messaging platforms,

03:40what have you.

03:42Why was Pavel Durov and Telegram specifically targeted?

03:45Yeah, Telegram. It's very true.

03:47We have not had such a high profile arrest of this nature,

03:52of one of these tech titans really up until now.

03:54You had some skirmishes between the Brazilian

03:58and U.S. authorities over WhatsApp back in a back in about five

04:02or six years ago, seven years ago.

04:04What's happening here is Telegram has been on the radar of law

04:07enforcement authorities, not just in Europe, but on the U.S.

04:10and elsewhere for a while, because it has been seen as a safe harbor,

04:14if you will, for groups such as terrorist organizations,

04:18such as drug dealers, such as weapons dealers,

04:22people who peddle in images child sexual abuse.

04:26That is one of the reported charges for which Pavel Durov's platform

04:30is accused of or allegedly complicit in letting those types of pedophilia

04:36type images proliferate on the platform.

04:38All of this has put Telegram front and center.

04:41And it is also shown a very harsh spotlight on Telegram.

04:44Obviously, it's not alone in the tech universe over that grander debate

04:49over where does free speech end and where does law enforcement

04:54and government regulation begin?

04:56Where do you draw that fine line between the two?

04:59If you're a free speech absolutist, say like Elon Musk,

05:03who is staunchly defended Pavel Durov, you come down very much

05:06on the side of free speech to the max.

05:09There are essentially no limits.

05:11If you are one who believes that you cannot cry fire in a crowded theater,

05:16there is a limit to free speech, then you obviously are going to believe

05:20that you cannot take too light a touch.

05:21You have to have some government regulation in there

05:24in the interests of free speech and citizens protection.

05:27Let's see what happens in front of that judge today.

05:29Thank you very much for that, Doug Harper.

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