Andrew Tate will be allowed to leave Romania while awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking, a court has ruled.
The controversial influencer and his brother Tristan can travel within the EU without restrictions while awaiting the trial, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled. Until Friday, the Tates had been banned from leaving Romania where he is awaiting trial.
The decision is not final and can be appealed by prosecutors.
Tate, 37, was charged in mid-2023 along with his brother for human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
Two female suspects from Romania have also been charged as part of the case.
They have all denied the allegations against them.
In a post on the X social media platform on Friday, Tate wrote: “I’m free. For the first time in three years I can leave Romania.
He also referred to the charges as a “sham case” before advertising a platform that says it teaches the skill of money-making.
Image: Andrew Tate (right) and his brother Tristan in Bucharest in May. Pic: AP
Tate, who has almost 10 million followers on X, repeated these sentiments in a video that accompanies the post and adds: “The process is the punishment, in the end I’ll be innocent.”
“My judges decided… I’m allowed to leave Romania, so do we take the (Ferrari) SF90 to Italy, the (Maserati) MC20 to Cannes, the (Ferrari) 812 Competition to Paris, where do I go?”
The Tate brothers, both former kickboxers with dual US and British citizenship, were held in police custody during the criminal investigation from late December 2022 until April 2023 to prevent them from fleeing the country or tampering with evidence.
They were then placed under house arrest until August, when courts put them under judicial control, a lighter preventative measure.
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From March: What next for the Tate brothers?
“Andrew and Tristan are still determined to clear their name and reputation; however, they are grateful to the courts for placing this trust in them,” the brothers’ lead defence lawyer Eugen Vidineac said in a statement.
Romanian prosecutors have said the Tate brothers recruited their victims by seducing them and falsely claiming to want a relationship or marriage.
They said the victims were then taken to properties outside the capital Bucharest, and through physical violence and mental intimidation were sexually exploited by being forced to produce pornographic content for social media sites that generated large financial gain.
In a separate case, Tate was served at his home in Romania with a civil lawsuit lodged by four British women after a claim was issued by the High Court in London, according to a statement released in May by McCue Jury & Partners, the law firm representing the four women.
The four allege Tate sexually and physically assaulted them and reported him to British authorities in 2014 and 2015.
After a four-year investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2019 not to prosecute him.
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The alleged victims then turned to crowdfunding to pursue a civil case against him.
In a third case, the Tate brothers also appeared in March at the Bucharest Court of Appeal after British authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression in a UK case dating back to 2012 to 2015.
The appeals court granted the British request to extradite the Tates to the UK, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.
Tate, a self-described misogynist, has gained millions of fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say denigrates women.
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