EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Tate’s bail application is REJECTED by Romanian judge who rules he must remain behind bars: Influencer says he’s disappointed and ‘had hoped to be reunited with his family’
- Andrew Tate and brother arrested in December on human trafficking charges
- READ MORE: Tate denies having cancer and says scar on lung ‘is from old battle’
Andrew Tate has today been denied bail by a Romanian judge who ruled he must remain behind bars on sex trafficking charges.
Tate, 36, was arrested on December 29 with his brother Tristan on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group to exploit women.
Last month, he lost his appeal against a judge’s February 21 decision to extend his arrest a third time for 30 days.
And today, Tate appeared at a bail hearing which he hoped would result in him being released from prison and placed under house arrest after nearly three months behind bars.
However, his application was rejected by the judge this afternoon. The influencer said he was ‘disappointed’ by the decision as he had ‘high hopes’ to be reunited with his family,’ before adding that his lawyers will be appealing the decision.
Andrew Tate has today been denied bail by a Romanian judge who ruled he must remain behind bars on sex trafficking charges
Tate, 36, was arrested on December 29 with his brother Tristan on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group to exploit women
Tate appeared at a bail hearing which he hoped would result in him being released from prison and placed under house arrest after nearly three months behind bars
A spokesperson for Tate told MailOnline: ‘Unfortunately, the Romanian judicial system denied Andrew Tate’s request for bail today. We are disappointed in this outcome as we had high hopes to see Andrew reunited with his family.
‘His legal team will be appealing this decision within the 48hr time frame.
‘The decision of the court can be seen below:
‘[The Court] Rejects the request to replace the measure of preventive arrest with the measure of judicial control on bail formulated by the defendant TEA as inadmissible in principle. With the right of appeal within 48 hours of communication.’
Tate’s legal team will appeal the decision to refuse the influencer bail. If this appeal is also denied, he will remain behind bars until at least March 29.
Following the judge’s decision, Tate’s lawyer Eugen Vidineac said: ‘At first sight, the court’s decision is illegal because the inadmissibility principle concerns a question of the impossibility of the judicial act, a principle that cannot be applied in this case.’
Tate’s brother Tristan will attend his bail hearing tomorrow.
Their two female accomplices, Luana Radu, 32 – a former police officer in Bucharest – and Georgiana Naghel, 28 – a model believed to have been dating Tate for almost a year – will also attend bail hearings tomorrow and on Thursday respectively. None of the four have yet been formally charged.
In Romania, it is rare for defendants under preventative arrest for serious crimes to request posting bail. More common are requests to be placed under other judicial conditions such as house arrest or geographical restrictions.
Last week, Tate denied that he has cancer after confirming last week that he has a ‘dark spot on his lung’.
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
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate arrive at The Court of Appeal in Bucharest, Romania, on February 27 alongside Radu and Naghel
Tate’s Twitter account said the scar on his lung ‘is from an old battle’ after the medical details were released last week.
‘I do not have cancer. My lungs contain precisely 0 smoking damage. In fact, I have an 8L lung capacity and the vital signs of an Olympic athlete,’ the update said.
‘There is nothing but a scar on my lung from an old battle. True warriors are scarred both inside and out,’ the post added in a style that has become typical of Tate’s social media messages since his detention.
Last month, the Bucharest court upheld a third 30-day detention for Tate and Tristan. It is the third separate appeal the brothers have lost against decisions to extend their detention while investigations continue.
Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT, said prosecutors also won an appeal against a court’s decision to place Radu and Naghel under house arrest, instead of in full detention.
A document explaining an earlier decision to keep them in jail said the judge took into account the ‘particular dangerousness of the defendants’ and their capacity to identify victims ‘with an increased vulnerability, in search of better life opportunities.’
Tate, who has lived in Romania since 2017, was previously banned from various social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech. He has repeatedly claimed Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and alleged their case is a ‘political’ conspiracy designed to silence him.
DIICOT said in a statement after the December arrests that it had identified six victims in the human trafficking case who were allegedly subjected to ‘acts of physical violence and mental coercion’ and sexually exploited by members of the alleged crime group.
The agency said victims were lured with pretenses of love and later intimidated, placed under surveillance and subjected to other control tactics while being coerced into engaging in pornographic acts for the financial gain of the crime group.
In January, Romanian authorities descended on a compound near Bucharest linked with the Tate brothers and towed away a fleet of luxury cars that included a Rolls-Royce, a Ferrari and a Porsche. They reported seizing assets worth an estimated $3.9 million.
Prosecutors have said that if they can prove the cars’ owners gained money through illicit activities such as human trafficking, the assets would be used to cover the expenses of the investigation and to compensate victims. Tate also unsuccessfully appealed the asset seizure.
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