BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Andrew Tate, the divisive internet personality who has spent months in a Romanian jail on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, has won an appeal to replace his detention with house arrest, an official said Friday.
The Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Tate’s appeal, which challenged a judge’s decision last week to extend his arrest a fourth time for 30 days, said Ramona Bolla, a spokesperson for Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT.
Tate, 36, a British-U.S. citizen who has 5.5 million Twitter followers, was initially detained in late December in Romania’s capital Bucharest, along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian women.
All four won an appeal Friday, and will remain under house arrest until Apr. 29, Bolla said. None of the four has yet been formally indicted. The court ruled in favor of their immediate release. Prosecutors cannot challenge the appeal court’s decision, which was final, Bolla added.
As the brothers left the detention facility late Friday in Bucharest, Tristan Tate told a scrum of reporters that “the judges today made the right decision.”