Andrew Tate loses appeal against detention in human trafficking and rape case

Online misogynist Andrew Tate has lost his appeal against a judge’s decision to extend his arrest period from 24 hours to 30 days on charges of being part of an organised crime group, human trafficking and rape.

Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romanian anti-organised crime agency DIICOT, said a Bucharest appeals court late on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Tate, his co-accused brother Tristan and two Romanian women arrested in the same police operation.

Prosecutors can now request detentions of up to 180 days for the four suspects.

The four have denied wrongdoing and their lawyers have claimed there is no evidence against them – though authorities said they had made the arrests based on accounts from six women.

Ioan Gliga, one of the defence lawyers, said: “Prosecutors’ arguments were that they have evidence. Naturally, our arguments were that there isn’t evidence.”

A small group of supporters of Tate, a controversial 36-year-old social media influencer with more than 4.4 million Twitter followers, gathered outside the court for the hearing on Tuesday.

Tate was initially detained on 29 December in an area north of Bucharest along with the other three suspects.

Eugen Vidineac, a Romanian defence lawyer representing the defendants, said after Tuesday’s hearing that “all four of the accused have made statements” and that “the lawyers’ pleas were listened to entirely.”

DIICOT said after making the arrests that it had identified six victims in the case who were subjected by the group to “acts of physical violence and mental coercion” and were sexually exploited by group members.

The agency said victims were lured by pretences of love, and later intimidated, surveilled, and subjected by means of control into performing pornographic acts intended to make substantial amounts of money for their exploiters.

Prosecutors investigating the case have so far seized a total of 15 luxury cars — at least seven of which are owned by the Tate brothers — and more than 10 properties or land owned by companies registered to them.

Tate is reported to have lived in Romania since 2017. He was previously banned from Twitter for expressing misogynistic views, but was recently reinstated.

Since Tate’s arrest, a series of ambiguous posts have appeared on his Twitter account, with posts continuing during his appeal hearing on Tuesday.

One, posted on Sunday and accompanied by a local report suggesting he or his brother have required medical care since their detention, reads: “The Matrix has attacked me. But they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea. Hard to Kill.”

Another post, from Saturday, read: “Going to jail when guilty of a crime is the life story of a criminal — going to jail when completely innocent is the story of a hero.”

Hope not Hate, a British advocacy group, said it monitored Tate for years “because of his close links to the far right.” It described the influencer in a report it produced last year as an “extreme misogynist” who holds conspiratorial views.

“Our major concern is that his brand of extreme and sometimes violent misogyny is reaching a young male audience and that he could serve as a gateway to wider far-right politics,” Hope not Hate said in a statement after Mr Tate was banned by Facebook parent company Meta in August.

Associated Press contributed to this report