Andrew Tate, the social media influencer who has spent almost three months in a Romanian jail on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, has won a plea along with his brother, Tristan to be moved from detention to house arrest.
Andrew Tate has been behind bars for the past three months over human trafficking and rape allegations but has not been charged with anything.
The Bucharest court of appeals ruled in favor of their plea, which challenged a judge’s determination last week to extend his detention a fourth time for 30 days.
Tate, 36 years old, a British-US citizen who has 5.4 million Twitter followers, was initially arrested in December in Bucharest along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women, Naghel Georgiana Manuela, and Radu Alexandra Luana. They have rejected all the allegations.
All four won an appeal on Friday and will remain under house arrest until 29 April, Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said. None of the four have yet been formally indicted.
Mateea Petrescu, Tate’s communications director told Sky News, They are not a flight risk and they are not a danger to public safety, therefore the authorities have decided to release them under house arrest.
It’s just a small step, they are still under investigation. They are ecstatic. They kept their spirits in jail, they are really thrilled and looking forward to being at home, and they kept their optimism throughout.”
Mateea Petrescu said
Andrew, who has lived in Romania since 2017, is banned from having an account on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for violating rules on “dangerous individuals” and breaching hate speech rules. He was suspended from Twitter in 2017 but allowed back in November 2022.
I’m a little bit emotional. I’ve been in one room since last year so it’s a little bit emotional. I wanna give respect to the judges who heard us today because they were very attentive and they listened to us.
I have no resentment in my heart for the country of Romania or anybody else. I just believe in the truth. I believe in God and that the fire of truth will eventually burn the lies.”
Andrew Tate said after his release from Romanian Jail
Tate went on to express his innocence, saying he believes the court will find him innocent of all accusations.
He has constantly claimed Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and alleged their lawsuit is a political conspiracy prepared to silence him.
DIICOT said in a statement after the December arrests that it had identified six victims in the human trafficking case who were allegedly subjected to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” and sexually manipulated by associates of the alleged crime group.
The agency said victims were drawn with affectations of love and later threatened, placed under surveillance, and subjected to other control tactics while being forced into engaging in pornographic acts for the financial gain of the crime group.
In January, Romanian authorities said they had seized goods and money worth almost £3.25m from the influencer’s compound including a fleet of luxury cars.
