A French lawyer with experience in state security cases has said the CEO of Telegram, Pavel Durov, could be made to wait 10 years for his trial on charges of complicity in criminal offenses.
Maud Marian, a Paris-based defense lawyer, told The Epoch Times that she suspects the prosecutor in charge of the case, Laure Beccuau, wants “information” from Durov and does not necessarily want to put him on trial.
Sadry Porlon, a French lawyer who specializes in information technology law, disagreed, saying the issues involved are relatively straightforward and could be quickly resolved.
Durov is not the first executive to be arrested and charged in connection with an encryption device or app.
In 2021, Thomas Herdman, a Canadian national, was extradited from Spain to France and charged with 22 offenses relating to the Sky ECC network.
Herdman, who denies any wrongdoing, has been held in Fleury-Mérogis prison near Paris for three years and still has not been given a trial date.
Marian said that considering Herdman’s case, Durov could expect an even longer wait time for a trial.
“Ten years is not unusual when the case is linked, in one way or another, to state security,” she said.
A trial should be set more quickly when someone is waiting in jail, Marian said.
“It’s a tactic of the French justice system, that they will take all the time they need because what they want is information, and when an investigation is open, they can investigate anybody and everything,” she said.
“It should not be OK, but it is. It is really very common.”
Durov was indicted on Aug. 28, and under French law, his defense counsel, David-Olivier Kaminski, can submit requests to the investigating judge.
In the wake of the indictment, Kaminski told French media that “it’s totally absurd to think that the person in charge of a social network could be implicated in criminal acts that don’t concern him, directly or indirectly.”
Durov is being prosecuted under new legislation, known as the Guidance and Programming Act (LOPMI), which was passed in January 2023 with little fanfare.
“As of April 24, 2023, any natural or legal person who is the victim of loss or damage caused by a cyberattack in the course of their professional activity will have to file a complaint within 72 hours of knowledge of this breach in order to be able to be compensated by their insurer,” the announcement reads.
It appears that Beccuau and the J3 cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office are now trying to use the LOPMI’s provisions against Durov.
In a recent radio interview, Beccuau said LOPMI is a powerful tool for battling organized crime groups online.
Porlon said the act created a new offense of “administering an online platform offering illicit products” and strengthened the ability to investigate cybercrime.
The telecommunications lawyer said Durov had been charged with conspiracy, meaning that under the French penal code, “An accomplice to the crime or offense envisaged is sentenced to the same penalty as the person who is the main perpetrator.”
Porlon said judges take other factors into account, “but this does not prevent the criminal risk weighing on Pavel Durov’s head from being equivalent to that of its users who can be qualified as the perpetrator of the offense.”
“It would not be a question of saying that Mr. Durov actively participates in all the offenses committed on his platform,” he said.
“[But] by not doing what was necessary—in particular by not acting promptly once the content has been reported by state authorities—he could be accused of being an accomplice.”
Porlon said he very much doubts that Durov will have to wait 10 years for a judicial outcome.
Telegram Platform
Marian said of LOPMI, “It’s not a criminal law, in principle. It’s a law organizing the way the Interior Ministry should be organized on cybersecurity.”She said the “strange part” for Durov is that prosecutors are using the law to prosecute him on the grounds that he had launched an online platform “to commit crimes.”
Marian agreed and said it is ridiculous to suggest that Telegram was designed with the purpose of committing crimes and that millions of politicians, journalists, and other professionals, including French President Emmanuel Macron, use it for legitimate purposes.
“They are trying to prosecute Durov in a very strange way, which is complicity in opening a platform with the finality to commit crimes, which is a very strange way to proceed,” she said.
“Facebook or WhatsApp or whatever, any social network or any website or any way of telecommunication, can be used with a criminal intention, but [that] is not the finality of it.”
She said the LOPMI legislation had invented a “new crime,” which was being used against Durov.
“It should not even exist; in my opinion, it is not useful,” Marian said.
But Porlon offered an explanation for the charges. “The Telegram platform is accused of not having done what was necessary to ensure that ’the information or documents necessary for the implementation and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law' were communicated to the judicial authorities,” he said.
The Paris prosecutor’s office didn’t respond by publication time to a request for comment.
