To appeal last week’s decision to extend his detention for a third time by 30 days, divisive social media influencer and former professional kickboxer Andrew Tate showed up at an appeals court in Bucharest capital on Monday. Tate is being held in Romania on suspicion of organised crime and human trafficking.
Tate, 36, a dual British and American citizen notorious for his misogynistic views and his 5.2 million Twitter followers, showed up in the Bucharest Court of Appeal tied to his brother Tristan, who is also being jailed in connection with the same case. Two women from Romania involved in the investigation are also subject to home arrest.
A recent tweet by Tate:
My thoughts on self-analysis
Watch the full interview: https://t.co/OFCSI61n3l pic.twitter.com/vwi7SQYP37
— Andrew Tate (@Cobratate) February 27, 2023
After being arrested in Bucharest in late December, the Tates are appealing the judge’s order from February 21 to extend their custody for another 30 days. If they lose in court on Monday, they won’t be released from jail until late March.
Two past petitions by the brothers against 30-day extensions of their detention while investigations continued both failed. There has been no official charging of any of the four.
The judge considered the “special dangerousness of the accused” and their propensity to locate victims “with an increased susceptibility, seeking better life possibilities,” according to the paperwork justifying the initial decision to put them in jail.
Since When Tate in Romania?
Tate, who has been a resident of Romania since 2017, has a history of being blocked from accessing online communities due to the dissemination of sexist and racist commentary. He has repeatedly said that the Romanian prosecutors have no proof and that the entire case is a “political” plot to suppress him.
Following the arrests in December, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency released a statement saying they had found six victims of the human trafficking case who had been exposed to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” and sexual exploitation at the hands of the suspected criminal organisation.
The agency claims that victims were drawn in under false pretences of romantic interest before being subjected to intimidation, surveillance, and other forms of control to force them to engage in pornographic actions for the criminal organization’s financial gain.
The Romanian government seized several high-end vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and Porsche, in January from a compound near Bucharest that was associated with the Tate brothers. They said they had taken possession of property worth around $3.9 million.
Once it is established that the vehicles’ owners profited from illegal acts like human trafficking, the assets will be used to pay for the investigation’s costs and compensate the victims, the prosecutors have said. Tate had his property seized and filed an appeal, but it was denied.
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