Controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate lost an appeal Thursday against judicial restrictions preventing him from traveling outside Romania while awaiting trial for alleged human trafficking and rape, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled that Tate, 37, may not leave Romania, according to the report. Tate had appealed against a May 10 court decision that extended his geographical restrictions by 60 days. Tate had requested permission to travel out of Romania but not outside Europe’s ID check-free Schengen Zone to which Romania partly belonged, the report revealed.
Eugen Vidineac, one of Tate’s lawyers, denied that the dual British and U.S. citizen and former kickboxer was seeking to leave Romania for good. “One thing is to travel free and another is to leave the country. The right to travel is a constitutional right, it is a legal right, it is one of the fundamental rights,” Vidineac told reporters at the court, according to The AP.
Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) announced Tate’s arrest alongside his brother Tristan and two Romanian women on Dec. 29, 2022. The DIICOT did not name the suspects, but Reuters and The AP reported the arrests, with Reuters citing DIICOT’s press release.
The foursome were arrested in Ilfov County, near Romania’s capital city Bucharest, and accused of being a human trafficking ring. “So far, 6 [victims] have been identified who were sexually exploited by the organized criminal group,” DIICOT said at the time. One victim was raped twice, DIICOT also alleged.
DIICOT also released a video of the arrests. (RELATED: Andrew Tate, Tristan Tate Detained Over UK Arrest Warrant For Alleged ‘Horrific’ Sexual Aggression)
Tate told British journalist Piers Morgan that he was held in detention for 93 days. He alleged he was being hunted and that he was sometimes in solitary confinement and missed certain people. Often advocating masculine toughness, the online influencer with 9.3 million followers on Twitter hedged when Morgan said, “But you cried.”
“There were tears that ran down my face, but I did not cry,” replied Tate.
The two Tate brothers were later placed under house arrest and restricted to Bucharest and Ilfov County, The AP reported. The restrictions later eased somewhat, permitting travel throughout Romania.
The Bucharest Tribunal determined April 26 that Tate could go on trial, but no date was set.
Tate also has a separate, civil case in which four British women who accused him of physically and sexually assaulting them brought against him in Britain. The British Crown Prosecution Service had declined to prosecute Tate in 2019 after a four-year investigation of the allegations, leaving the women to crowd-fund toward the civil lawsuit, The AP reported.
A third case — this time of alleged sexual aggression sometime from 2012 to 2015 — led to Britain issuing arrest warrants for the two Tate brothers in March, according to the outlet.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal granted Britain’s request that the pair be extradited to face the third case—but only after the end of legal proceedings in Romania, the outlet added.
