UK police arrest King Charles’ brother Andrew, BBC reports
By Michael Holden and Sam Tabahriti
LONDON, February 19 (Reuters) – King Charles’ younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of abuse of public office over allegations that he sent secret government documents to Jeffrey Epstein, the BBC reported.
Thames Valley Police said earlier this month that officers were assessing allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor had forwarded documents to the deceased sex offender, according to files released by the US government.
In a statement about X, the police said, “Thames Valley Police has launched an investigation into the crime of misconduct in public office.” he said.
“A man in his sixties from Norfolk has been arrested and remains in police custody. In accordance with national rules we will not name the man arrested.”
Earlier newspapers had reported that six unmarked police cars and about eight plainclothes officers arrived at Wood Farm, on the Sandringham estate in eastern England where Mountbatten-Windsor, whose 66th birthday falls on Thursday, now lives.
The former prince, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth, has always denied any wrongdoing involving Epstein and said he regretted their friendship. However, it has not responded to requests for comment since the documents were last published.
There is no statement from Buckingham Palace yet.
Mountbatten-Windsor was reported to police by anti-monarchy campaign group Republic after the publication of more than 3 million pages of documents relating to Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage child in 2008.
These files suggest that Mountbatten-Windsor passed to Epstein reports in 2010 about Vietnam, Singapore and other places he visited on official trips.
Thames Valley Police and the Crown Prosecution Service previously said they were in talks about the case. Allegations of misconduct in public office, which are a ‘Common Law’ offense and therefore do not fall within the scope of codified legislation, present “particular complexities”, police said.
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and Michael Holden; Editing by Kate Holton and Janet Lawrence)
