Telegram founder Pavel Durov gets relief from French judicial surveillance

PANews reported on June 19 that according to Le Monde, Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has been approved by the Paris Court of Appeal to leave France on a limited basis starting July 10. The billionaire, who is charged with more than a dozen crimes, is now allowed to travel to Dubai (where his family lives and Telegram's office is located) for 14 consecutive days each year, but he must notify the pre-trial judge in advance and maintain other judicial control measures.

Since August 2024, Durov has been restricted from leaving the country due to his lack of platform content review and his refusal to cooperate with the French judicial investigation. He is required to pay a 5 million euro deposit and report to the authorities regularly. His legal team applied for the complete lifting of judicial control on June 3, saying that the existing charges were "groundless." The court's decision to partially relax the restrictions marks a turning point in this ten-month legal tug-of-war.