Andrew Tate today arrived at a Romanian court with his brother Tristan to appeal against a judge’s decision to keep them under house arrest for the duration of their trial over sex trafficking charges.
Tate, 36, and his brother are appealing against a court decision made last month to keep the brothers under house arrest for a further 30 days.
Their appearance at the Court of Appeal in Bucharest came after the influencer was formally charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women in June. Tristan and two Romanian women were charged with human trafficking.
It also comes hours after Tate made a misogynistic remark about a picture of Britain’s Got Talent Star Amanda Holden wearing a bikini while on holiday.
Tate, who has been described as the ‘king of toxic masculinity’, responded to Holden’s tweet featuring the photograph of her taking a shower in a bikini by writing: ‘You are a wife and a mother and you’re far past a teenager. There is no need for this post.’
Andrew Tate today arrived at a Romanian court with his brother Tristan to appeal against a judge’s decision to keep them under house arrest for the duration of their trial over sex trafficking charges
Tate, 36, (pictured on Tuesday) and his brother are appealing against a court decision made last month to keep the brothers under house arrest for a further 30 days
Andrew Tate, left, and his brother Tristan walk inside the the Court of Appeal building in Bucharest, Romania, on Tuesday
Amanda Holden has been shamed by misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate after posting a bikini-clad snap from her recent getaway
Amanda’s post ignited the vile response from Tate, who claimed there was ‘no need’ for her to share the image
Tate’s tweet prompted fierce backlash and comes as the influencer enters his fifth month locked in his house over sex trafficking and rape charges.
Tate, who was arrested on December 29 in Bucharest and has denied the allegations against them, has lost a series of appeals against his house arrest – but today he hopes that might change.
After spending three months in police detention in Bucharest, the Tate brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved to house arrest.
In June, Romania’s anti-organized crime agency known as DIICOT had requested that judges extend the house arrest measure after the agency filed its investigation.
Tate, who has been accused of peddling conspiracy theories online and has amassed 7.2 million Twitter followers, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy designed to silence him.
DIICOT alleges that Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian women – Luana Radu and Georgiana Naghel – formed a criminal group in 2021 ‘in order to commit the crime of human trafficking’ in Romania, as well as in the United States and Britain.
There are seven female victims in the case, DIICOT said, who were lured with false pretenses of love and transported to Romania, where the gang sexually exploited them and subjected them to physical violence.
One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, according to the agency. The women were allegedly controlled by ‘intimidation, constant surveillance’ and claims they were in debt, prosecutors said.
Last week, it was reported that leaked messages have demonstrated how Tate coerced women into doing sex work for him.
When the influencer was arrested in Romania in December, authorities accused him of using the ‘loverboy’ method to lure woman to his compound in Bucharest under the guise of having a relationship, before forcing them to do sex work.
Leaked messages have demonstrated how alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate (left with his brother, Tristan) coerced women into doing sex work for him, according to a report
Former police officer Luana Radu (left) and Georgiana Naghel (right) are suspected of assisting the Tate brothers in the crimes they are under investigation for
According to Rolling Stone, citing screenshots of purported messages from the ‘War Room’ (Tate’s groupchat with his followers) and other texts in 2021, Tate described women as ‘targets’ and ‘assets’ and spoke of isolating and manipulating them.
In one message, the misogynist described how he isolated one woman until she ‘lost her support networks at home’ and kept her at the compound in Bucharest.
‘The real goal is for her to agree to never go anywhere without me. Not even her home town. I need her working,’ he wrote, according to screenshots.
Pictured: A selection of messages purportedly sent by Andrew Tate to his ‘War Room’ group chat and to women, seen in screenshots also posted to the group chat
Tate also appeared to seek help from his associates to force one woman to post sexually explicit content on OnlyFans, an internet content subscription platform used mostly by sex workers.
In the message, Tate tells followers he’ll be ‘making the play tonight’.
‘Since she moved [to Bucharest] she’s been fed. But nothing else,’ he wrote.
‘She’s broke. And she can’t go home. And she can’t leave the house. Man, I sound almost evil,’ he added according to the leaked messages.
A spokesperson for the influencer told MailOnline that ‘a significant portion of retweets and shares of these screenshots across social media platforms originate from recently created and unverified accounts’ and suggested they could have been generated by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.
‘The rise of AI and social media as a news source has opened up the opportunity to anonymously present potentially fabricated, or manipulated evidence, while bypassing the burden of responsibility and avoiding consequences,’ they said.
‘These realities raise concerns about the potential for a deliberate and targeted effort to sway public opinion and undermine the credibility of the evidence presented.’
On screenshots of messages purported to be between Tate and one of the victims included in the case against the Tate brothers, the spokesperson said she ‘has publicly and categorically refuted any mistreatment from the brothers.
However, despite her pleas, the prosecution remains reluctant to remove her name from the alleged victim list.
‘While all statements from the alleged victims, incriminating the brothers, have been unquestioningly accepted by the public, the evidence supporting the brothers’ innocence has not been given the same fair treatment,’ they added.
Tate was previously banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing hate speech and misogynistic comments, including that women should ‘bear responsibility’ for getting sexually assaulted.
When asked if a woman accused him of cheating and came at him with a machete, Tate said: ‘It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b****.’
Leading domestic abuse charities have warned such content is extremely misogynistic and has the potential to radicalise men and young boys to bring harm to women.
Several women in Britain also are pursuing civil claims to obtain damages from Tate, alleging they were victims of sexual violence.
The British women looking to bring the claim against Tate say that they have suffered personal injury and psychiatric harm after alleged violent sexual and physical assaults in the UK.
They are being represented by law firm McCue Jury & Partners.
In June, Tate appeared in a combative BBC interview in which he blasted the broadcaster over their attempts to ‘vilify’ him.
In his first interview since being detained, Tate repeatedly dismissed the BBC’s questions about allegations of rape, human trafficking and exploitation of women – and instead demanded to ask his own questions.
When quizzed about a testimony from a woman who has accused Tate of rape and exploitation, the influencer responded by asking his own question and telling the BBC journalist: ‘You’re not the boss here because I’ve allowed you into my house.’
In a combative interview last month, Tate repeatedly dismissed the BBC’s questions about allegations of rape, human trafficking and exploitation of women – and instead demanded to ask his own questions
When asked about Sophie’s testimony, Tate claimed, without providing evidence, that she did not exist and instead kept asking the BBC reporter questions instead of answering her own
Following the interview, which collapsed after Tate, 36, said he was doing the BBC a ‘favour’ by speaking to the broadcaster, the self-professed misogynist launched a scathing attack on the broadcaster.
He tweeted: ‘The mainstream media which vilify me, beg me for interviews under the guise of balanced journalism. The Matrix is desperate.’
Tate claimed that whilst he had been vilified, the BBC was not similarly outraged when the broadcaster’s presenters Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris were grooming and raping girls.
‘Where was the BBC’s outrage when Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris were grooming and raping and molesting young girls for decades?’
Savile, who was one of Britain’s biggest television stars before his death in 2011, molested at least 72 children, some as young as eight, over a four-decade campaign of abuse. And Harris was jailed over 12 indecent assaults against four underage girls.
When asked about the allegations made against him, Tate told the BBC in the heated interview: ‘I know the case intimately and you don’t. I have seen all the criminal files and the evidence against me and you haven’t.
‘I know the truth of what happened and you don’t. And I’m telling you absolutely and utterly, I’ve never hurt anybody, that the case that’s been put against me is completely and utterly fabricated and I’m never going to be found guilty of anything.’
Romanian officials transport the sports cars seized from the Tate compound to an undisclosed storage location, from Voluntari, Ilfov, Romania, on January 14
Prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage. Pictured: Andrew Tate with his Bugatti
Tate then dismissed the testimonies of individual women who have accused the influencer of rape and exploitation. One British woman, referred to as Sophie to protect her identity, has claimed Tate slapped and strangled her to the point of passing out ‘during rough sex’.
Sophie told the BBC in February Tate had charmed her at first and encouraged her to work for his webcam business before becoming controlling and coercive.
When asked about Sophie’s testimony, Tate claimed, without providing evidence, that she did not exist and instead kept asking the BBC reporter questions instead of answering her own.
‘I’ve asked you a question and I’ve allowed you into my house,’ Tate said, to which the BBC reporter responded: ‘I am asking you a question. You get to decide the answers.’
But Tate hit back and said: ‘No we are equal here. I’ve allowed you into my house. You don’t come here with a position of authority. I’m doing you the favour as legacy media, giving you relevance, by speaking to you.
‘And I’m telling you now, this Sophie, which the BBC has invented, who has no face. Nobody knows who she is. I know.’
Prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
The victims were then taken to properties on the outskirts of the capital, Bucharest, and coerced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated large financial gain, prosecutors say.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk