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BUCHAREST, Jan. 11 (AP) – A court in Romania’s capital Bucharest said late Tuesday that a court upheld the punishment for divisive social media personality and self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate on charges of organized crime, human trafficking and rape. 30 days of arrest.
Ramona Bolla, spokeswoman for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency DIICOT, said the court rejected Tate’s appeal against a judge’s earlier decision to extend his arrest from 24 hours to 30 days.
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Tate, 36, a British-American citizen with 4.5 million followers on Twitter, was initially detained for 24 hours on Dec. 29 along with his brother Tristan, who was charged in the same case. Two Romanian women were also detained.
Late Tuesday, the court rejected all four appeals against a judge’s Dec. 30 decision granting prosecutors a request to extend the arrest period. A document explaining the judge’s reasoning said “the possibility that they evaded investigation cannot be ignored” and that they could “leave Romania and settle in a country that does not allow extradition”.
Tate and three other defendants arrived at Bucharest’s appeals court in handcuffs on Tuesday and were taken away in the afternoon. Romanian defense attorney Eugen Vidineac, who is representing Tate, told reporters after the morning hearing that “all four defendants made statements” and that “the counsel’s requests were fully heard.”
Tate, a former professional kickboxing athlete who has reportedly been living in Romania since 2017, has previously been banned from various prominent social media platforms for expressing misogynistic views and hate speech. The week of his arrest, he exchanged insults with teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter.
DIICOT said it had identified six victims in the trafficking case who had been subjected to “physical violence and psychological coercion” and were sexually exploited by members of the alleged criminal group.
Victims are seduced by feigned love and then subjected to intimidation, surveillance and other control tactics, while forced to engage in pornographic acts designed to make money for their alleged persecutors, the agency said.
DIICOT spokesman Bolla said prosecutors investigating the case had seized 15 luxury vehicles, at least seven of which belonged to the Tate brothers, and more than 10 properties or land owned by companies they registered.
If prosecutors can prove that the Taitz family profited from human trafficking, the assets “will be confiscated by the state and[will]pay for the investigation and damages to the victims,” ​​Barra said.
Prosecutors can now request up to 180 days of detention for the four accused people after an appeals court upheld the extension of the arrest warrant.
Since Tate’s arrest, his Twitter account has seen a series of ambiguous posts. Each tweet garnered widespread media attention.
One, published on Sunday and accompanied by a Romanian report suggesting he or his brother needed medical attention after his arrest, read: “The Matrix attacked me. But they misunderstood, you can’t kill an idea. Hard to kill.”
Another post on Saturday read: “Crime going to jail is the life story of a criminal…and totally innocent going to jail is the story of a hero.”
British advocacy group Hope not Hate said it had been monitoring Tate for years “because of his close ties to the far right”. It described the influencer as an “extremely misogynist” with conspiracy theories in a report published last year.
“Our main concern is that his extreme, sometimes violent misogyny is affecting young male audiences, and that he could be a gateway to broader far-right politics,” Hope not Hate after Tate was banned by Facebook’s parent company issued a statement saying. Company dollars in August. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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