Police are investigating Lord Peter Mandelson over alleged emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein about a €500 billion Eurozone bailout, according to Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
Britain’s top police officer said that the email represented a “potential criminal offence”, in an interview with ABC on Wednesday.
In the latest release of the Epstein files, Lord Mandelson appeared to confirm a yet-to-be-announced €500bn bailout of the Euro, prompting claims he had leaked sensitive government information.
“With Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador [to the US], there is a particular email to do with the bailout after the financial crash I think in 2008-09,” he said. “It looks like it was shared with Epstein. We are looking at that as to whether it’s a criminal offence.”
Sir Mark said that an investigation into Lord Mandelson’s contact with the disgraced financier and child sex offender would be conducted “without fear or favour”.
He added that the Met Police are also reviewing a “whole range of sexual allegations” against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in order to determine whether they merit a criminal investigation.
Earlier this week it was reported that the commissioner had last month asked the US ambassador Warren Stephens for full documents relating to the peer, who was sacked as UK ambassador to the US over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“Of course, there’s a big body of that evidence … in the United States in all those files and at some stage we’re going to need the unredacted evidence,” he said in the new interview.
“We need the original copy and where did it come from and that’s going to be necessary if we get to the stage of court cases.”
Sir Mark is expected to push the US authorities further during a visit to Washington this week, according to reports.
All investigations would be conducted with full transparency and equality before the law he stressed, addressing concerns around the high-profiles of those who have been mentioned in the latest tranche of Epstein files released by the US department of justice.
A mention in the files is not an indication of guilt.
“Those investigations all go wherever the evidence takes them — quite comfortable with investigating sort of famous or powerful people,” he continued.
“I think it’s really important for policing to do that, that sense of operating without fear or favour. The law applies equally to everyone, and those cases will go, say, wherever the evidence leads us to.”
He also shed light on four interviews that had been conducted with Virgina Giuffre, who alleged that she was trafficked by Epstein in 2001 to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor. The former prince has vehemently denied the allegations.
“With Virginia Guiffre, we did four of those interviews with her … and those interviews didn’t give us any evidence or any allegations of sexual offending or trafficking that we could investigate in the UK,” Sir Mark continued.
“That’s why that investigation didn’t go forward.” Ms Giuffre died by suicide last year.
Police are investigating Lord Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office, while Thames Valley Police is leading a separate probe into Mountbatten-Windsor for the same alleged offence.
The investigation into Mandelson concerns his contact with Epstein during his time as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government. Before that, he served as European Commissioner for Trade between 2004 and 2008.
He was referred to the European Union’s anti-fraud agency last month following the controversy.
The Independent has contacted the Metropolitan Police and Lord Mandelson’s representative for comment.
