British police on Thursday arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, over suspicions of misconduct in public office after accusations that he shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.
The arrest was a stunning blow to the British monarchy, which has been rocked by scandals for decades and is now enduring the spectacle of one of its members being arrested.
It also underscored a striking contrast in the official responses to the Epstein files. The British authorities have moved aggressively to investigate the possibility of crimes emerging from the three million pages of correspondence with Epstein, while the US police have not.
His brother, King Charles III, in a statement, confirmed the arrest. A spokesman for King Charles said that Buckingham Palace was not informed of Andrew’s arrest before it took place on Thursday morning.
As is policy under British law, the police did not name the suspect, but the details provided in the police report match what is known about the public misconduct allegations. The police were seen on Thursday morning at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England, where Andrew lives.
While Andrew’s links to Epstein, the convicted sex offender, have been known for years, his arrest marks a new chapter in his public fall from grace. Last year, he was stripped of his royal titles and evicted from his sprawling residence.
Andrew has consistently denied wrongdoing. His representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
King Charles said he supported a “full, fair and proper process” regarding the investigation of his brother, adding that he backs the authorities involved: “In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation”. He added: “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”
A tranche of documents released by the US department of justice on January 30 included a number of emails that suggested Andrew may have shared confidential documents when working as a British trade envoy. In one email, he appears to forward to Epstein official reports about visits he made as envoy to South Asia in 2010 that were sent to him by his assistant.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, said that the financier had trafficked her to Andrew around 2001, when she was a teenager, and that he had sex with her multiple times. In 2022, he paid Giuffre an undisclosed sum to settle a lawsuit in a New York court in which she said he had raped and sexually abused her when she was 17. Andrew has denied any wrongdoing in relation to his friendship with Epstein.
New York Times News Service