Romanian court upholds longer detention for Tate
Social media figure and co-defendants can be held 30 days in rape-trafficking case.
BUCHAREST, Romania — A Romanian court has upheld the 30-day arrest of social media personality and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate on charges of organized crime, human trafficking and rape, an official said late Tuesday.
Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for the Romanian agency DIICOT, which combats organized crime, said the court rejected Tate’s appeal of a judge’s earlier decision to extend his arrest from 24 hours 30 days.
Tate, 36, a British-U.S. citizen who has 4.5 million followers on Twitter, was initially detained Dec. 29 for 24 hours along with his brother Tristan, who was charged in the same case. Two Romanian women also were taken into custody.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal rejected all four appeals of a judge’s Dec. 30 decision granting prosecutors’ request to extend the arrest period. A document on the judge’s earlier decision said that “the possibility of them evading investigations cannot be ignored,” and that they could “leave Romania and settle in countries that do not allow extradition.”
The four defendants arrived in court in handcuffs Tuesday morning and were taken away in the afternoon, hours before the rulings.
After Tate lost his appeal, a cryptic post on his Twitter account read: “When Allah said ‘I test only those I love.’ I took the pain like it was an honour — Abu Hurayrah.”
Tate, a former professional kickboxer who has reportedly lived in Romania since 2017, was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech. The week of his arrest, he traded insults on Twitter with climate activist Greta Thunberg.
DIICOT said it had identified six trafficking victims who were subjected to “physical violence and mental coercion” and were sexually exploited by the members of the alleged crime group.
The agency said victims were lured by pretenses of love, then intimidated, kept under surveillance and subjected to other forms of control, coerced into performing pornographic acts to make money for the defendants.
Prosecutors have seized 15 luxury cars, at least seven owned by the Tate brothers, and more than 10 properties owned by companies registered to them, Bolla said.
Bolla said that if prosecutors can prove the Tates gained money through human trafficking, the assets “will be taken by the state [to] cover the expenses of the investigation and damages to the victims.”
With the appeals court upholding the arrest extension, prosecutors can now request detentions of up to 180 days for the four.
Ambiguous posts on Tate’s Twitter account since his arrest have garnered widespread attention.
One, posted Sunday with a Romanian report suggesting he or his brother had required medical care since their arrests, read: “The Matrix has attacked me. But ... you cannot kill an idea.”
Another post, from Saturday, read: “Going to jail when guilty of a crime is the life story of a criminal. Going to jail when completely innocent is the story of a hero.”
Hope Not Hate, a U.K. advocacy group, said it monitored Tate for years due to “his close links to the far right.” It described the influencer in a report as an “extreme misogynist” who has conspiratorial views.
“His brand of extreme and sometimes violent misogyny is reaching a young male audience ... he could serve as a gateway to wider far-right politics,” the group said after Facebook parent company Meta banned Tate in August.