British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should testify before a US congressional committee after new revelations about the former prince’s links to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
New files related to Epstein published by the US justice department on Friday included emails showing King Charles’s brother maintaining regular contact with Epstein for more than two years after he was found guilty of child sex crimes.
The files also include pictures appearing to show Andrew crouching over and touching the waist of an unidentified woman lying on the floor. Her face was blacked out in the redacted images.
Separately, the BBC on Sunday quoted a US lawyer as saying a woman had alleged she was sent, while in her 20s, by Epstein to Britain for a sexual encounter with Andrew which took place in 2010 at a royal property on the estate of Windsor Castle.
Representatives for Andrew, who has always denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the BBC report. Reuters has also sought comment from the US lawyer, Brad Edwards, from the firm Edwards Henderson, who made the claims on behalf of the unidentified woman, who the BBC said was not British.
The allegation represented the second claim of a woman being flown from the US to Britain to meet Andrew after Virginia Giuffre, a prominent accuser of Epstein, said she was forced to have sex with him in London.
In 2022, Andrew made an undisclosed payment to settle a lawsuit brought in the US by Giuffre, who died by suicide in April last year. Andrew, 65, has always denied Giuffre’s account.
The king stripped his brother of his title of prince and evicted him from his mansion in the grounds of Windsor Castle in November in the wake of previous revelations about his links with Epstein.
The former prince, 65, now uses the family name Mountbatten-Windsor. He has denied wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and had previously denied maintaining ties with the financier after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, apart from a 2010 visit to New York to end their relationship.
He did not reply to a Reuters request for comment on the latest revelations in the US justice department files. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
Starmer, speaking to reporters on the aeroplane to Japan after a four-day visit to China, said the former prince should appear before US legislators to explain everything he knows about Epstein to help his victims.
“Anybody who has information should be prepared to share the information in whatever form they are asked to do that,” Starmer said. “You can’t be victim-centred if you’re not prepared to do that.”
In November, members of a US congressional committee investigating the Epstein case intensified their calls for the former prince to answer questions.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He was jailed in 2008 for soliciting paid sex from a minor.
The files show Andrew maintained regular contact with Epstein after his conviction, including discussing potential business deals and social meetings.
In several emails, Epstein and Andrew discuss women whom the financier proposes to put in touch with the prince. In one email, Epstein offered to bring three women to Buckingham Palace.
Reuters
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