Bucharest, Romania — A court in the Romanian capital ruled on Friday that a trial can begin in the influencer's case Andrew Tate, who is accused of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The Bucharest Tribunal ruled that the prosecutors' case against Tate met the legal criteria, but did not set a date for the trial to begin.
Tate spokesperson Mateea Petrescu said the ruling had been appealed.
Tate, 37, was arrested near Bucharest in December 2022, along with his brother Tristan Tate and two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally charged all four in June last year. They have denied the allegations.
“The ruling of the provisional chamber judge lacks a legal basis and motivation,” said Eugen Vidineac, one of the brothers' lawyers, after the ruling. “We have filed a vigorous appeal because we believe the ruling is unlawful.”
Vadim Ghirda/AP
Before the court's ruling Friday, the lawsuit was discussed for months in the pretrial chamber phase, a process in which the defendants can challenge the evidence and the prosecutors' file.
“We reaffirm our belief in the fairness of the arguments we made during the preliminary hearing and in the memoranda on the legality of the criminal investigation,” said Ioan Gliga, another lawyer for the Tates. “Although they did not receive the necessary attention during the preliminary hearing, we are confident that the appeals court judges will support us.”
Andrew Tate, who has amassed 9.1 million followers on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him.
Tate was previously banned from several prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech. Both Tates are British-American citizens.
Last month, the Bucharest Tribunal extended geographical restrictions against Tate, a former professional kickboxer, and ruled that he could not leave the country. Tate had requested that he be allowed to travel within the European Union with prior permission from a judge.
After the Tate brothers' arrest, they were held in police detention for three months before being placed under house arrest. They were later restricted to the municipality of Bucharest and the nearby Ilfov district, but can now travel freely throughout Romania.
Also last month, the Tate brothers appeared before the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case, after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a British case dating from 2012-2015.
The Court of Appeal granted the British request to extradite the Tates to Britain, but only after the legal process in Romania has been completed.
