According to the more detailed news sources I can find about this, it seems he knew the French were looking for him. I don't know if he knew about the contents of the warrant, but it does seem he knew the authorities were planning to arrest him.
From what I can tell the warrant has been out for longer, but he was arrested when the airport police noticed his name was on a list. There's not a lot of information out there, with neither the French authorities nor Telegram providing any official statements to the media.
The Sud-Ouest article must have been updated because the version currently online does not mention that at all. Quite the opposite, the article quotes an official that was surprised that Durov would come to Paris anyway even though he knew he was under an arrest warrant in France, and another source says that he might have decided to come in France anyway because he believed he'll never be held accountable.
really? we seal warrants in the US all the time - we don't want people who we are trying to apprehend to always know ahead of time we are trying to apprehend them
You're somewhat mistaken. In the U.S., you aren't owed a warning that the cops are looking for you, especially if you're a flight risk. That was never part of it.
There are also valid reasons the other way, like consulting an attorney to challenge the warrant or prepare a defense before it gets executed, disrupts your life and prevents you from clearing your name because you're being incarcerated without bail. It's hard to investigate the charges against you from a cell.
Or the ability of journalists to inform the public of what the government is getting on with in their name. If the government is investigating their critics they have no right to keep it a secret.
That inconvenient bill of rights keeps us a step or two behind the rest of the anglosphere in decent to tyranny, but only for so long. It just takes a handful of dishonest judges to claim some right actually means something entirely different.
> Because in your eyes it is so gradual the difference between it's happening slowly and not happening at all is imperceptible and impossible to prove.
It's extremely straightforward to prove. You look at the laws that have been passed and the court opinions issued in the last 30-60 years.
Fuck around and find out. If he legitimately ignored legal French documents forcing him to share information, as the French have declared, he's got got.
You don't step foot on a country with an extradition treaty, even less so the country itself, where you're flouting their warrants for your company's data.
Despite having lots of treaties agreeing to extradition in principle, the UAE is somewhat notorious for never extraditing anybody anywhere in practice.
