(21 Jun 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bucharest, Romania - 21 June 2023
1. Various of Bucharest court exteriors
2. SOUNDBITE (Romanian) Ioan Gliga, Tate brothers' lawyer:
“I'm sure that things are going towards the right path and in the end it'll be proven that the boys are innocent. (Journalists asking question) There aren't very many accusations: it's the initial one, that of organised crime group and then the human trafficking, presumably six persons trafficked. Regarding the rape accusations, I'm saying this again and again. Ever since December 2022, the judge for rights and liberties said that there is no proof to sustain the rape accusations. They can take this to court, of course, it's the right of the prosecutor to do this, but already a judge said there is no evidence for the rape accusations, so this is a defiance of the prosecutor towards the decision of a judge.”
3. Various of court exteriors
STORYLINE:
The lawyer of Andrew Tate said he believes the brothers will be proven innocent after the first hearing in their trial in Bucharest.
Andrew Tate, a social media personality known for expressing misogynistic views online, appeared Wednesday at a court in Romania, where prosecutors have charged him with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women.
Tate and his brother, Tristan, who is also charged with the offenses, arrived at a court in the capital Bucharest, flanked by six bodyguards.
"I'm sure that things are going towards the right path and in the end it'll be proven that the boys are innocent," the brothers' lawyer Ioan Gliga said after the hearing.
Gliga also refuted the rape charges by saying that a judge had already dismissed them for lack of proof.
"They can take this to court, of course, it's the right of the prosecutor to do this, but already a judge said there is no evidence for the rape accusations, so this is a defiance of the prosecutor towards the decision of a judge,” he added.
Prosecutors have also filed charges against two Romanian women in the case.
Romania's anti-organized crime agency alleged 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.
The agency alleged that seven female victims were misled and transported to Romania, where they were sexually exploited and subjected to physical violence by the gang.
One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, according to the statement.
Tate, 36, has resided in Romania since 2017.
The former professional kickboxer has repeatedly claimed Romanian prosecutors have no evidence and alleged the case is a political conspiracy to silence him.
The Tate brothers, who are dual British-US citizens, and the two Romanian suspects were detained in late December in Bucharest.
The brothers won an appeal on March 31 to be moved from police custody to house arrest.
Tate is a successful social media figure with more than 6 million Twitter followers, many of them young men and schoolchildren.
He previously was banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook for hate speech and his misogynistic comments, including that women should bear responsibility for getting sexually assaulted.
AP video shot by Nicolae Dumitrache
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