🔗 Share this article

A US congressional panel looking into pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein has formally written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, once Britain’s Prince Andrew, demanding that he undergo questioning as part of its investigation into Epstein’s criminal operations.

In a letter published on Thursday, a US representative, the senior Democrat on the House investigative committee, requested that King Charles III’s brother help with its probe.

The official demand to respond to queries arrives a week after Mountbatten Windsor was stripped of his princely title and opted to surrender his property in Windsor.

Documents and Claims

Mountbatten Windsor’s name appears in documents and flight logs obtained from Epstein’s estate and made public by the committee. He has also been accused by one of Epstein’s survivors, the late Virginia Giuffre, of abuse.

“The oversight committee will investigate accusations of misconduct by Mountbatten Windsor, and will request details on Epstein’s operations, network, and connections based on the men’s longstanding and extensively reported friendship,” the committee said in a press release.

It demanded details from Mountbatten Windsor on specifics of his friendship with Epstein, who took his own life in a New York prison cell in 2019. Andrew has consistently vehemently rejected any wrongdoing.

Details of the Request

“It has been widely reported that your friendship with Mr Epstein started in 1999 and that you continued associating through and after his 2008 sentencing for procuring minors for sex work,” the letter said.

It stated further: “It has also been claimed that you journeyed with Epstein to his New York property, the Queen’s residence at Balmoral, and to Mr Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, where you have been charged of harming minors. This strong bond with Mr Epstein, along with the recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which you wrote to him ‘we are in this together’, further supports our belief that you may have valuable information about the wrongdoings committed by Mr Epstein and his partners in crime.”

A statement regarding the letter said it was supported by 13 other Democrats on the committee and asks a reply by 20 November.

Past Comments and Cooperation

The letter arrives a week after another Democrat on the committee commented: “Andrew should be summoned to give evidence before the panel. The citizens deserves to know who was harming women and underage individuals alongside Epstein.”

However, the lawmaker does not have the ability to subpoena the duke and Congress itself cannot force testimony from a foreign national.

In 2020, US authorities said that Mountbatten Windsor failed to respond to US requests for an meeting. The then US attorney for the southern district of New York said that authorities and the FBI had approached Andrew’s attorneys to check on his earlier promise that he was “ready to help any appropriate law enforcement agency”.

“It’s just for people to know whether Prince Andrew has honored with that public commitment,” the attorney said, adding that to date he had “given no cooperation”.

Appeals for Justice

The congressman said in a statement that “wealthy and powerful men have escaped accountability for far too long. Now, one-time Prince Andrew has the opportunity to be honest and provide justice for the survivors. Oversight Democrats will not stop pushing for answerability and clarity for victims of Epstein and his network of accomplices.”

Another supporter, a Virginia Democrat, said that after receiving testimony to the committee from Epstein’s survivors, as well as public reporting of leaked documents, “it is vital that Andrew cooperates with the active probe. If he is blameless, then he can vindicate himself.”

The lawmaker stated further: “And if not, our examination will show that, and the affected individuals will receive much-delayed justice. The monarchy’s actions taking away Andrew of his styles suggest there is additional to this case.”

The letter was issued on the same day the British king formally stripped Mountbatten Windsor of his royal title. Charles III formally made the adjustment – which had been declared a week ago – by issuing a “letters patent” which the monarch’s office published in the Gazette, the UK’s public registry.