Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he met the founder of the Telegram messaging service, Pavel Durov, who may face criminal charges in France, in Moscow long ago.
“It was a meeting with entrepreneurs,” Putin said Thursday at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. “We haven’t seen each other since then, we’ve never kept in touch.”
Putin denied meeting Russian-born Durov in Paris shortly before his arrest.
At the same time, he criticized the actions of the French authorities against the billionaire.
Shortly before his arrest, Durov was in Azerbaijan, where he was simultaneously on an official visit by Putin to the Caucasian republic.
According to media reports, Durov had sought a meeting with Putin in Baku, but Putin has now stated that he was not aware of Durov’s presence there. He would not have refused a meeting in Moscow, he added.
According to the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, investigators accuse Durov of, among other things, failing to cooperate sufficiently with criminal investigations and of being an accomplice to criminal acts through his messaging app.
Durov is suspected of being complicit in drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud and various crimes related to child abuse, due to a lack of regulation of Telegram and a lack of cooperation with the authorities.
Critics of Telegram also suspect Durov of collaborating with Russian security services, which he denies.