UAE asks France for 'urgent' consular services to arrested citizen Telegram’s Durov
Russian-born Pavel Durov has been a resident of the UAE since 2017 and a citizen of the Gulf state since 2021.
DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates' Foreign Ministry has urged France to urgently provide consular services to its citizen Pavel Durov, CEO of tech platform Telegram, who is currently in custody in Paris.
In a statement, the ministry said it had "submitted a request to the Government of the French Republic to provide him with all the necessary consular services in an urgent manner."
Durov was arrested by French authorities late on Saturday evening on cybercriminality charges. The billionaire entrepreneur, who has been living in the United Arab Emirates since 2017, was granted citizenship of the Gulf state in 2021. He was born in Russia and holds Russian citizenship, and is also a citizen of France and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry said it remained concerned and was "prioritizing the welfare of UAE citizens, safeguarding their interests."
"Providing all aspects of support" to its arrested citizen is a key priority for the UAE, the statement read. The ministry was not available for comment on whether it was able to reach Durov.
"Durov is a UAE citizen as much as he is a Russian citizen, and it will do everything legally possible to help him and will use its friendly relation with France to secure his release," Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a UAE-based retired professor of political science, told Al-Monitor.
The arrest
Durov was arrested in Paris after he traveled from Azerbaijan, where he is alleged to have met Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin denied.
The charges leveled against Durov include child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform.
Telegram has been accused of allowing illicit activity such as the sale of arms by militants. The platform also previously allowed the Islamic State to disseminate messages. Telegram's unique features such as groups that can support up to 200,000 users have come under scrutiny for enabling illegal activity.
Telegram has denied the charges in a statement, saying it was "absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform."
Durov's arrest is the most high-profile arrest of a tech CEO in recent years and elicited condemnation from Elon Musk, CEO of X, a social media platform that has also come under similar scrutiny.
