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Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan will remain in custody until February 27 after a Romanian court extended their detention: The social media star rages that he is ‘arrested for a crime of opinion’
- Andrew Tate was arrested on December 29 in Bucharest along with his brother and two Romanian women on charges of human trafficking and rape.
- The judge today granted prosecutors another 30-day extension for his arrest
- Authorities seized a fleet of 15 luxury cars from the Tate complex over the weekend
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan will remain in jail until February 27 after a Romanian court extended their detention.
Tate, 36, a British-American citizen who has 4.5 million Twitter followers, was arrested on December 29 in Bucharest along with Tristan and two Romanian women on charges of being part of an organized crime group, dealing of people and rape.
Today, a judge granted prosecutors another 30-day extension on their arrest, meaning the four will remain in custody until February 27.
Tate, accused of recruiting young women and forcing them to create pornographic content online, was furious at the judge’s decision, saying through his lawyers that he “is being arrested for an opinion offence.”
Andrew Tate, center, and his brother Tristan, leave after appearing in the Court of Appeal, in Bucharest, Romania, on January 10.
‘We continue to maintain that practically at this moment the Tate brothers are being arrested for a crime of opinion, for what they said, at some point, in the online environment and not for what they actually did in their private lives’, Constantin Ioan Gliga, one of the defense lawyers, told a Romanian media outlet Slacker.
Tate is accused of recruiting dozens of women and holding them under house arrest ‘as prisoners’ while forcing them to create online pornographic content on webcams.
Romanian prosecutors claim Tate recruited the women on social media platforms and lured them to Bucharest by falsely professing his love and intention to marry them.
Tate (pictured on a private jet) allegedly recruited dozens of women and held them under house arrest ‘as prisoners’ while forcing them to create pornographic content online.
Meanwhile, Romanian authorities went to a Tate-owned complex near Bucharest on Saturday to tow away a fleet of 15 luxury cars and remove 14 designer watches and cash worth an estimated 3.6 million euros (£3.6 million). 3.1 million).
Romania’s organized crime agency said it has identified six victims in the human trafficking case who were subjected to ‘acts of physical violence and mental coercion’ and were sexually exploited by members of the alleged criminal group.
The agency said the victims were lured under pretenses of love and then intimidated, kept under surveillance and subjected to other control tactics while being coerced into acting out in pornography.
Tate, a former professional boxer who has reportedly lived in Romania since 2017, was previously banned from several prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech.
After the assets were moved from the Tate complex on Saturday, a post appeared on his Twitter account saying: “Anyone who thinks I’m a human trafficker is truly a moron” and that “anyone smart enough to understand the American system is unfair I would be amazed by the injustice of the Romanian system.’
This is breaking news, more to follow…