BUCHAREST, March 31 – Social media personality Andrew Tate was placed under house arrest late Friday after a Romanian court rejected prosecutors’ request to keep him in police custody until the end of April.
Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian suspects have been in police custody since December 29 while prosecutors investigate them on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang for the sexual exploitation of women.
They have denied all allegations.
“We view the court’s decision as lawful, thorough and correct,” Tate’s attorney, Eugen Vidineac, told reporters.
He said the brothers were forbidden from contacting witnesses and from leaving the home without the authorities’ approval. “We still don’t have a reason from the court, we don’t know if there are other bans.”
“We’re going home,” Tristan Tate said in Romanian outside the prison. His brother did not comment.
More than twenty supporters waited for them outside the jail and chanted “Top G,” as Tate’s supporters call him.
Earlier this week, the same appeals court in Bucharest denied the Tate brothers’ bail application.
In previous decisions extending their stay in police custody, judges said the Tate brothers posed a risk of absconding and that their release could jeopardize the investigation.
“All four are getting off tonight,” Ramona Bolla, a spokeswoman for Romania’s DIICOT unit that fights organized crime, told Reuters. “The decision is final, the investigations continue.”
Asked whether Friday’s ruling will speed up the investigation, Bolla said prosecutors had until the end of June to try the suspects.
According to Romanian law, prosecutors have filed charges against the four suspects, but the case is still under investigation and has not yet gone to court.
Prosecutors said the Tate brothers recruited their alleged victims by seducing them and falsely claiming they wanted a relationship or marriage. Victims were then forced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated huge financial gains.
Tate, primarily based in Romania since 2017, is an online influencer and self-proclaimed misogynist who has amassed a following of millions of fans, particularly among young men drawn to his hyper-macho image.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Alan Charlish; Edited by Jonathan Oatis, Giles Elgood and Josie Kao
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