Andrew Tate Will Face Human Trafficking Trial in Romania

Andrew Tate, an antagonistic online personality known for his misogynistic comments, will be tried in Romania on charges including human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group related to the abuse of women, prosecutors there said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr. Tate, 36, a British American former kickboxer, had been living in Romania and was arrested there in December last year along with his younger brother, Tristan Tate, and two Romanian women. They were initially held in a Bucharest jail.

The four have been under house arrest since April as investigations continued. They will now face a trial in a Bucharest court, though it was unclear when that would take place.

Mr. Tate has denied any wrongdoing and has said he is innocent, both through his lawyer and to his nearly seven million followers on Twitter.

“We embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation,” said Mateea Petrescu, a spokeswoman for Mr. Tate and his brother, referring to the announcement of the indictment on Tuesday, calling the prosecutors’ decision “predictable.”

Among the charges Mr. Tate faces are accusations that he and the other suspects formed a criminal group in 2021 to commit human trafficking across Romania, the United States and Britain.

Prosecutors said that the brothers had misled women into believing they wanted to establish a relationship and housed them outside Bucharest.

The investigators identified seven victims who they said were coerced into performing sexual acts on camera by the accused, who disseminated the content. On two separate occasions, one of the defendants used violence and psychological pressure to rape one of the women, the prosecutors’s statement said, without specifying which defendant.

Delia Marinescu contributed reporting.