LONDON: Britain’s government committed Tuesday (Feb 24) to releasing documents on ex-prince Andrew’s past role as a trade envoy, after the Jeffrey Epstein scandal widened with the arrest of a veteran UK politician.
The fallout from the publication last month by US authorities of millions of files related to late sex offender Epstein is reverberating around the British monarchy and political circles.
It has piled pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government to release documents on Andrew and former minister Peter Mandelson, who are both now the subject of high-profile police investigations.
Minister Chris Bryant told parliament that the government would release vetting documents on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as trade envoy, a post he held from 2001 to 2011.
It came after the third largest party, the Liberal Democrats, deployed a little-used parliamentary mechanism intended to force ministers to disclose files, which stem from when Tony Blair was Labour prime minister 26 years ago.
Bryant said publishing the documents was “the least we owe the victims” of Epstein, adding that Andrew was “a rude, arrogant and entitled man”.
