BUCHAREST: Divisive social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, have been charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women, prosecutors in Romania said Tuesday.
Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said prosecutors filed the charges against the brothers, who are both British-US dual citizens, along with two Romanian women.
In a statement, the agency said that the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania as well as the United States and Britain. It alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang.
The Tate brothers and the two Romanian suspects were detained in late December in Romania’s capital Bucharest. The brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved from police custody to house arrest.
Tate, 36, is a professional kickboxer with millions of Twitter followers. He has resided in Romania since 2017, and 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.
Prosecutors have ordered the confiscation of assets from the Tate brothers including 15 luxury cars, luxury watches and about $3 million they held in cryptocurrency, the agency’s statement said.
On Tuesday, Tate’s spokesperson Mateea Petrescu said the brothers were prepared to “demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation.”
“Tate’s legal team are prepared to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities, presenting all necessary evidence to exonerate the brothers and expose any misinterpretations or false accusations,” Petrescu said.
Andrew Tate faces charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania
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Andrew Tate faces charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania
- Prosecutors filed the charges against the brothers, who are both British-U.S. dual citizens, along with two Romanian women
- The defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 “in order to commit the crime of human trafficking” in Romania as well as the United States and Britain
Bangladesh says at least 287 killed during Hasina-era abductions
DHAKA: A Bangladesh commission investigating disappearances during the rule of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina said Monday at least 287 people were assumed to have been killed.
The commission said some corpses were believed to have been dumped in rivers, including the Buriganga in the capital, Dhaka, or buried in mass graves.
The government-appointed commission, formed after Hasina was toppled by a mass uprising in August 2024, said it had investigated 1,569 cases of abductions, with 287 of the victims presumed dead.
“We have identified a number of unmarked graves in several places where the bodies were presumably buried,” Nur Khan Liton, a commission member, told AFP.
“The commission has recommended that Bangladesh seek cooperation from forensic experts to identify the bodies and collect and preserve DNA samples from family members.”
In its final report, submitted to the government on Sunday, the commission said that security forces had acted under the command of Hasina and her top officials.
The report said many of those abducted had belonged to the country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), both in opposition to Hasina.
In a separate investigation, police in December began exhuming a mass grave in Dhaka.
The grave included at least eight victims of the uprising against Hasina, bodies all found with bullet wounds, according to Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power.
She was sentenced to death in absentia in November for crimes against humanity.
“We are grateful for finally being able to know where our brother is buried,” said Mohamed Nabil, whose 28-year-old sibling Sohel Rana was identified as one of the dead in the grave in Dhaka.
“But we demand a swift trial for the police officials who shot at the people during the uprising.”
