Romanian court keeps Andrew Tate under house arrest

By Stephen McGrath and Andreea Alexandru | Associated Press

BUCHAREST, Romania — A court in Romania’s capital on Tuesday ruled to extend by another 30 days the house arrest of Andrew Tate, the divisive social media influencer who is charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

The decision at the Bucharest Tribunal comes a month after prosecutors formally indicted the 36-year-old social media star along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women in the same case. All four defendants — who were arrested in late December near Bucharest and have denied the allegations against them — will remain under house arrest for 30 more days.

Outside the court on Monday, Tate told journalists that “the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice in the end.”

“My brother and I are extremely resilient people. … In the end justice shall be served,” he said. “We’re feeling like things are going to work out perfectly in the end — and until then we’re going to follow the judicial process.”

The Tate brothers, who are dual U.K.-U.S. citizens, will likely appeal against Tuesday’s ruling. The Tates lost their last appeal on July 6 against a prior house arrest extension.

After spending three months in police detention in Bucharest, the Tate brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved to house arrest. In June, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency known as DIICOT had requested that judges extend the house arrest measure after the agency filed its investigation.

Andrew Tate, who has been accused of peddling conspiracy theories online and has amassed 7.2 million Twitter followers, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy designed to silence him.

Before the court’s decision on Tuesday, a post appeared on his Twitter account that read: “There are Matrix agents on all sides of the political spectrum. War is funded. Trump and I are self funded. Basically everyone else is bought and paid for.”

DIICOT alleges that the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania, as well as in the United States and Britain.

There are seven female victims in the case, DIICOT said, who were lured with false pretenses of love and transported to Romania, where the gang sexually exploited them and subjected them to physical violence. One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, according to the agency. The women were allegedly controlled by “intimidation, constant surveillance” and claims they were in debt, prosecutors said.

Andrew Tate was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing hate speech and misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for getting sexually assaulted.

Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims to obtain damages from Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence.

McGrath reported from Sighisoara, Romania.