Telegram Founder Faces Life Imprisonment Threat in Russia, Here's the Case

Telegram founder Pavel Durov faces the threat of a lengthy prison sentence, up to life imprisonment, if found guilty of charges of aiding and facilitating terrorist activities, according to his lawyer Oleg Zernov, who spoke to the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday (29/7).

Zernov explained that inciting, recruiting or involving others in terrorist criminal acts carries a penalty of eight to 15 years in prison, or even life imprisonment.

Earlier the same day, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Durov had been placed on the international wanted persons list.

Durov is charged under Article 205.1, Paragraph 1.1 of the Russian Criminal Code concerning acts of facilitating terrorism. According to the FSB, Telegram’s management is deemed to have failed to remove channels, chat groups and bots used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies to plan acts of sabotage, terrorist attacks in Russia, mass killings and cyber fraud.

The series of actions was reported to have caused numerous fatalities and material losses running into billions. Telegram itself is an instant messaging platform that allows its users to exchange messages and multimedia files in various formats. Founded by Durov in 2013, Telegram is now recorded as having more than 1 billion monthly active users. (Ant/P-3)