Bucharest, April 4 (dpa) – US-British influencer Andrew Tate and three alleged accomplices have been released from prison in Bucharest after three months of detention and placed under house arrest, following a decision by an appeal court late on Friday.
The four, who are accused of sexually exploiting young women, left the prison to the applause of many fans outside the gate, local broadcaster Digi24 showed in a livestream.
Their house arrest is set to last for an initial 30 days, after which the court is to take a new decision on whether to extend the house arrest, impose a new detention or set the four free.
Prosecutors had requested custody to prevent Tate from influencing witnesses. Experts now consider his risk of flight to be low because he has to hand his identity documents to the police and the border guards will be alerted, under the terms of his house arrest.
Romania is not part of Europe’s Schengen free-travel area.
The four suspects were arrested in the Bucharest suburb of Voluntari on December 30. Prosecutors accuse Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian women of forming a criminal group with the aim of sexually exploiting women.
They allegedly forced young women to participate in commercially distributed sex videos, after using manipulation techniques to make their victims dependent on them. They also allegedly threatened and blackmailed some of the victims.
One of the two alleged Romanian accomplices is a former policewoman. So far, six victims have been identified. The Tate brothers deny the accusations.
When they were arrested, investigators discovered weapons and large sums of cash in the Tate brothers’ villa – including a gorilla figurine made from dollar banknotes. Later, ten properties and 15 luxury cars owned by the Tates in Romania were seized.
During his detention, Andrew Tate complained about the conditions of detention: “Cockroaches, lice and bedbugs are my only friends at night,” he said.
Tate became widely known in 2016 when he was kicked out of Britain’s Big Brother show after a video of him beating a woman with a belt went public.
GNA