By Dominique Vidalon, Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS (Reuters) -Russian-born Telegram boss Pavel Durov was being transferred on Wednesday to see the French investigative judge who was due to decide whether to place him under formal investigation following his arrest as part of a probe into organised crime on the messaging app, a judicial source said.
Durov's detention as he landed in Paris on a private jet on Saturday has put the spotlight on the criminal liability of app providers and fuelled debate on where freedom of speech ends and enforcement of the law begins.
The investigating judge on Wednesday decided to conclude the initial police questioning and see Durov, in police custody since his arrest, to decide whether to take the probe further.
Being placed under formal investigation in France does not imply guilt or necessarily lead to trial, but indicates that judges consider there is enough to the case to proceed with the probe. Investigations can last years before being sent to trial or shelved.
The judge's decision was expected by 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), 96 hours - or four days - after Durov was taken into custody, the maximum period he can be detained before a decision is made.
Durov's arrest has also put in focus the uneasy relationship between governments and Telegram, which has close to 1 billion users.
President Emmanuel Macron, who with his team uses Telegram, had lunch with Durov in 2018 as part of a series of meetings with tech entrepreneurs, a source close to Macron said.
If Durov is placed under formal investigation, judges will also decide whether to put him in pretrial detention. One factor they will consider is whether he could try to flee.
The news outlet Politico reported that French authorities had also issued an arrest warrant for Durov's brother Nikolai, a co-founder of Telegram, and that both warrants had been issued in March.
Asked about the report, the Paris prosecutor's office said arrest warrants were covered by the secrecy of the investigation. It said the only person currently being questioned was Pavel Durov.
WHAT CRIMES ARE SUSPECTED?
The overall investigation is at this stage directed against unspecified people.
It focuses on suspected complicity in crimes including running an online platform that allows illicit transactions; possessing images of child sex abuse; drug trafficking; fraud; refusing to pass information to authorities; and providing cryptographic services to criminals, prosecutors said.
The prosecutor's office did not say which crime or crimes Durov himself might be suspected of.
Durov's French lawyer did not reply to repeated Reuters requests for comment through emails and phone calls.
In a statement on Monday, Telegram said it abided by European Union laws and its moderation was "within industry standards and constantly improving".
"Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe," it said. "It is absurd to claim that a platform, or its owner, are responsible for abuse of that platform."
Faced with accusations from Russia, and also Elon Musk, that France was stifling freedom of speech with Durov's arrest, Macron took the unusual step on Monday of posting on X about what he called "false information".
He said France was committed to free speech and the independence of the judiciary, which he said had decided alone to arrest Durov.
A source close to the matter repeated on Wednesday that Macron and his government had nothing to do with the arrest.
The foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on a Wall Street Journal report saying French and United Arab Emirates authorities had jointly hacked Durov's phone in 2017. Durov has had French citizenship since 2021.
(Additional reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Timothy Heritage and Sharon Singleton)
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