Virginia Giuffre’s family has welcomed news of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, saying, “He was never a prince.”
Authorities in the United Kingdom arrested the former royal on Thursday “on suspicion of misconduct in public office” in relation to his former role as a trade envoy, and he remains in police custody.
While the arrest was not in connection with sexual abuse allegations against Andrew, the family of Giuffre, who was among his accusers, has issued a statement.
“At last, today, our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty,” Giuffre’s siblings said in a statement shared with CBS News.
“On behalf of our sister, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, we extend our gratitude to the U.K.’s Thames Valley Police for their investigation, and the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He was never a prince. For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you.”
The former prince has come under renewed scrutiny after the latest tranche of released materials from the so-called Epstein files shed further light on his relationship to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew has routinely denied any wrongdoing and has not responded to persistent calls to testify in the U.S. about what he knew about the extent of Epstein’s various crimes.
Congress wrote to formally seek an interview with him last November, with the committee on oversight and government reform saying it had identified “financial records containing notations such as ‘massage for Andrew’ that raise serious questions.”
In its letter to Andrew, the committee cited “well-documented allegations” involving the former prince and accuser Giuffre, and a recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which Andrew told Epstein, “we are in this together.”
The committee said this “further confirms our suspicion that you may have valuable information about the crimes committed by Mr. Epstein and his co-conspirators.”
Earlier this week, a lawyer for Giuffre said that Andrew should be granted “safe passage” to the U.S. to testify about Epstein.
Speaking on Piers Morgan Uncensored, David Boies argued that Andrew has an “obligation” to disclose what he knows about the late financier and should be able to do so without fear of arrest.
The remarks followed Hillary Clinton’s statement that anyone asked to testify on Epstein, including the former prince, should appear before a congressional committee.
”He has an obligation to tell what he knows,” Boies said. “Now, I also think that if he’s afraid of being arrested in the United States, we ought to give him safe passage to come to the United States to testify, because we don’t want there to be any excuse for him not coming and telling what he knows.”
In January, pictures that appeared to show Andrew crouched over an unidentified woman were among three million Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said a few days later that Andrew should be prepared to testify before Congress.
Starmer suggested the former prince would be failing victims if he continues to refuse to do so. He called for a “victim-centred” approach to dealing with the Epstein case, saying that “anybody who’s got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they’re asked to do that.”
