Influencer Andrew Tate appears in court to appeal for detention

Influ­encer Andrew Tate has appeared in a Roman­ian court to appeal his arrest after being detained for over a month.

Hand­cuffed by his broth­er Tris­tan, he shout­ed his inno­cence to wait­ing journalists.

The two have been in cus­tody since late Decem­ber and are being inves­ti­gat­ed by police for alleged rape and exploita­tion, which they both deny.

Last month, a judge extend­ed their deten­tion until the end of February.

Police have yet to pros­e­cute the broth­ers, who moved to Roma­nia five years ago.

Andrew’s attor­ney, Ioan Gri­ga, told reporters Wednes­day that he will appeal the extend­ed deten­tion and that he has “new evi­dence” to refute the pros­e­cu­tion’s arguments.

“The vic­tim denies any crime was com­mit­ted and the pros­e­cu­tion only believes it was com­mit­ted,” he said.

The judg­ment of the appeals court is expect­ed to be issued lat­er today.

Also in court was a new legal advis­er hired by the Tate broth­ers from the Unit­ed States. Tina Grandi­an has rep­re­sent­ed celebri­ties such as Mike Tyson and Chris Brown, and she spe­cial­izes in inter­na­tion­al human rights.

There is spec­u­la­tion that her appoint­ment will bring a fresh approach to Tate’s legal team, which is try­ing to get her broth­er’s pre­tri­al release.

The broth­ers, who are Amer­i­can and British cit­i­zens, also hired a com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist to respond to the media inter­est in the case.

Last week, in explain­ing the deci­sion to keep the Taits in cus­tody for an addi­tion­al month, the judge said, “Defen­dants are capa­ble of con­tin­u­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal con­trol over their vic­tims, includ­ing by resort­ing to con­stant acts of vio­lence. ” he issued a strong statement.

The tes­ti­mo­ny of the alleged vic­tims “revealed pat­terns of behav­ior” and added cred­i­bil­i­ty to their claims. He also empha­sized the Tate broth­ers’ “spe­cial dan­ger” due to their “abil­i­ty to tar­get vul­ner­a­ble victims.”

Local media have since report­ed that the alleged vic­tims filed four com­plaints with the police sta­tion near the Tate com­pound, at least one of which was filed in 2021. At least one com­plaint was not addressed until Tait’s inves­ti­ga­tion was launched.

The Police Inspec­torate has issued a state­ment that it has “start­ed a review” of the offi­cers’ con­duct at the scene and is deter­min­ing whether legal action should be taken.