DOCUMENTARY:
ELIZABETH II
THE PARASITIC AND CORRUPT HOUSE OF WINDSOR’S PARTNERSHIP WITH GLOBAL MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS.
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Revealed: Prince Andrew made secret deal to use tax haven tycoon’s £40m luxury jet to fly the world because he was fed up with ageing RAF planes, sparking calls for official probe into duke’s opaque finances
- Prince Andrew travelled on Global Express at least five times on Royal duties
- Funding for £7,600 per hour jet owned by financier David Rowland is a mystery
- Duke sought assurances it would have tight security as Royals were to use it
- He opened a bank in tax haven Luxembourg, 2009, and one in Monaco in 2012
- Ex-MP Nigel Mills to demand probe by National Audit Office spending watchdog
Prince Andrew (right) with David Rowland at the financier's luxury home on the island of Guernsey who is said to have provided him with private jets
Prince Andrew made a secret deal to fly around the world on a £40million luxury jet owned by a controversial financier whose private bank he quietly promoted while working as Britain’s overseas trade envoy.
A leaked email reveals how Andrew fixed it so that property tycoon David Rowland’s sumptuous 14-seat plane was used for some of his overseas Royal engagements after the Prince became ‘frustrated’ with the ageing aircraft provided by the RAF.
Records unearthed by The Mail on Sunday show how in the last two years Andrew has travelled on the Global Express at least five times while on official Royal duties, some of which he combined with promoting his treasured Pitch@Palace project or Mr Rowland’s latest business venture.
The email also reveals how Andrew, Britain’s roving trade ambassador between 2001 and 2011, sought assurances that the aircraft would have tight security while it was on the ground at Farnborough airport in Hampshire, because ‘it was going to be used by members of the Royal Family’.
Last night, Buckingham Palace said the flights were not taxpayer funded but refused to explain how they were paid for, other than to say the matter was ‘private’. A spokesman also refused to say which Royals had used the jet or who met the security bill.
Sumptuous: The luxury interior of a Bombardier Global Express jet owned by Rowland, costing up to £7,600 per hour to hire, which was used by Prince Andrew to fly to the United Arab Emirates. In a leaked letter to a Bombardier sales executive, Rowland said: ‘The quality of it, from its flying capacity to its fantastic interior and paintwork, has exceeded all expectation’
The extraordinary deal was struck in 2010 when Prince Andrew was still UK trade envoy but records reveal he flew on the executive jet as recently as this May.
In October last year, records show the plane flew to the United Arab Emirates. The Court Circular reveals that only the next day Andrew was yet again cutting the ribbon on one of Mr Rowland’s banks following a multi-million-pound deal.
The Duke had previously opened a bank owned by the Rowlands in the tax haven of Luxembourg in September 2009 and then one in Monaco in 2012. In the eight days after opening the headquarters of the Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank in Abu Dhabi, Andrew attended three Pitch@Palace events there.
The Duke wrote to Mansour Ojjeh, President of Tag Group, where he outlined a deal claiming to have helped Rowland purchase his new Bombardier jet (pictured). He asked Ojjeh for reassurances that the jet would maintain high safety standards as it was to be used by the Royal family
Andrew’s use of the top-of-the-range jet is bound to raise questions over whether the Duke was left indebted to the Rowland family. In fact, in a separate gushing email to Jonathan Rowland – David’s 44-year-old son and loyal business lieutenant – Andrew barely disguises his joy at the arrangement.
‘I am deeply, deeply grateful to your father for making this possible,’ he wrote. ‘I have a completely different outlook on life and its possibilities now. Whilst trying not to let it go to my head! Very difficult!’
Last week, the MoS revealed how Andrew quietly plugged the Rowlands’ Luxembourg-based bank for the super-rich while on overseas trade envoy missions. We showed how the Duke allowed the Rowlands to shoehorn meetings into his trade tours so they could expand the bank and woo wealthy clients.
One senior Tory last night said the jet deal had ‘conflict of interest written in 6ft-high print’. Nigel Mills, before the Election a member of the Commons public accounts committee, pledged that if re-elected this week, he will demand a probe by the National Audit Office spending watchdog.
Prince Andrew attends a military air display event on November 25, 2010 in Abu Dhabi. In October last year, records show the Global Express plane flew to the United Arab Emirates. The Court Circular reveals that only the next day Andrew was yet again cutting the ribbon on one of Mr Rowland’s banks following a multi-million-pound deal
‘It poses real questions about whether when he was performing Royal duties he was doing that in the national interest or in the interests of his mates. And that is something which should be independently looked at,’ Mr Mills said.
With a range of more than 7,000 miles and a luxurious cabin fitted out to the exact requirements of the owner, the Global Express was certainly an impressive choice of jet. Gary Dukes, an account executive at PrivĂ© Jets, a US firm that brokers private jet travel, said such an aircraft would cost up to £7,600 per hour to hire, adding: ‘There is not a set price but hourly costs can be between £5,900 and £7,600 – that includes pilots, fuel, everything.’
David Rowland was thrilled by his new plane after a ‘delivery ceremony and dinner’ hosted by its manufacturer Bombardier in December 2010. ‘It is a great aeroplane!’ he wrote in a leaked letter to a Bombardier sales executive. ‘The quality of it, from its flying capacity to its fantastic interior and paintwork, has exceeded all expectation.’
It was a stark contrast to the tired RAF executive jets of 32 Squadron used by the Royals and other dignitaries. Some of the jets dated back to the 1970s and were unable to fly across the Atlantic.
The Duke combined a four-day visit to Abu Dhabi (pictured in 2009) and the Crown Prince and an international school with three Pitch@Palace events. Here he is presented a white Gyr falcon on behalf of Abu Dhabi
In the astonishing leaked email, Andrew told Mansour Ojjeh, President of Tag Group, the then owner of Farnborough airport, that he was fed up with the Government’s failure to replace the aircraft.
‘Over the last few years, I have been increasingly frustrated at the Government’s lack of action and inability to see the need for replacement of the aircraft of the current Royal Flight,’ he said. In the late 1990s, Andrew, then still a Royal Navy officer, recommended privatising the Royal Family’s helicopters. This led to the Queen leasing a US-built helicopter instead of using two RAF Wessex helicopters.
But in his email he lamented that he had failed to persuade the Government to also privatise the Royal Flight’s fixed-wing aircraft.
And in a series of extraordinary comments, he revealed to Mr Ojjeh that he had taken matters into his own hands and approached ‘a number of private providers’.
Buckingham Palace last week refused to say how many aircraft owners the Duke spoke to – but his friend David Rowland was clearly one of them. Andrew outlined to Mr Ojjeh a deal in which he claimed to have helped Mr Rowland purchase his new Bombardier jet by buying time on the jet ‘in advance’.
Pictured: Financier David Rowland arrives at Princess Eugenie's wedding to Jack Brooksbank. Ex-MP Nigel Mills is to demand a probe by National Audit Office spending watchdog into the £40m jet owned by the financier (pictured)
‘I successfully moved the helicopter provision from the RAF to Civilian commercial nearly 10 years ago but the fixed-wing element has been as I say, frustrating in the extreme. In order to do something I went to discuss with a number of private providers the possibility of finding an alternative solution.
‘This I have managed to do and in the process have helped the owner by buying a number of hours per year in advance to help him with a potential purchase.
‘Cutting a long story short, I have contracted with David Rowland for use of his aircraft (which I helped him purchase from Bombardier).’
Pictured: Conversations between Jonathan Rowland, Prince Sultan bin Salman and the King of Bahrain's advisor
Buckingham Palace also refused to explain the financing of the arrangement but the Duke’s claim to have paid for access to the jet raises more questions about his mysterious finances.
Andrew’s only official income amounts to a £20,000-a-year Navy pension and a reported £249,000 paid privately each year by the Queen to run his official office. The Prince’s reason for writing to Mr Ojjeh was to seek assurances that the jet would be kept securely at Farnborough, Britain’s private jet hub.
‘I am concerned about the security of this aircraft as it is going to be used by members of the Royal Family and I would like to know it is well secure whilst it is on the ground at Farnborough.’ The Prince sent a draft of the email to Jonathan Rowland, asking for ‘any comments/additions/deletions?’
The jet deal further illustrates the extraordinarily close ties between Andrew and David Rowland, who was a tax exile for more than 30 years and who helped pay off Sarah Ferguson’s debts. In 2010, David Rowland quit as Tory Party treasurer amid controversy surrounding his business affairs.
Andrew (pictured earlier this year) was expected to travel to the Middle East in mid November as part of his Pitch project but has cancelled plans following reported pressure from his family
The MoS can reveal how Prince Andrew appeared to use Mr Rowland’s jet to fly to the Middle East for a visit in which he gave the Royal seal of approval to another one of his friend’s lucrative business ventures. Buckingham Palace’s Court Circular shows that Andrew opened the headquarters of the Anglo Gulf Trade Bank in Abu Dhabi’s glittering Al Maqm Tower, a 37-storey glass skyscraper on October 16, 2018. The bank is a joint venture between AGTB Holdings, a Rowland family-controlled company, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company.
Andrew was pictured cutting a ribbon in front of Edmund Rowland, David’s 34-year-old son who became the bank’s chief executive.
Rowland, Prince Andrew and Queen Elizabeth II before the start of the Gold Cup race on June 22, 2006. The Duke's most recent flight on Mr Rowland’s jet was in May, when he flew to Canada for a six-day visit. Publicly available flight records show the aircraft flew from Farnborough to Halifax Stanfield airport in Nova Scotia on May 23
Intriguingly, the Court Circular makes no mention of how and when Andrew arrived in Abu Dhabi. But the MoS has obtained flight records for Mr Rowland’s Global Express that show it flew from Farnborough to Abu Dhabi – a six-hour, 47-minute flight – the day before the opening ceremony. The bank’s bosses were thrilled the Duke had brought some Royal stardust to their launch.
‘Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank will have a real impact on the way that international trade is carried out and that is why the inauguration of our Abu Dhabi headquarters… by the Duke of York is such an important moment,’ said Jeremy Parrish, the bank’s chairman.
While in Abu Dhabi, the Prince also attended three events for Pitch@Palace – his business venture which matches investors with tech start-up companies – including one at Emirates Palace, a luxury five-star holiday resort.
Prince Andrew’s most recent flight on Mr Rowland’s jet was in May, when he flew to Canada for a six-day visit. Publicly available flight records show the aircraft flew from Farnborough to Halifax Stanfield airport in Nova Scotia on May 23.
The 2nd International Festival of Falconry sponsored by the Emirates Falconers' Club from Abu Dhabi held in the grounds of the Englefield Estate,Theale, Berkshire, Britain. Buckingham Palace has said none of the Duke's flights detailed were paid for by the Sovereign Grant
That night, according to the Court Circular, Buckingham Palace’s register of official engagements, the Duke attended a dinner hosted by Nova Scotia’s lieutenant governor.
The jet then appears to have whisked him to Toronto for more official engagements, including a visit to Lakefield College School – a private school in Ontario where, as a 17-year-old, he enjoyed a blissful six months. The visit could be his last. Following his disastrous BBC interview about links to Jeffrey Epstein, Lakefield’s head last month confirmed Andrew is no longer the honorary chairman of its foundation.
Pictured: Email exchanges between Andrew, his aide Amanda Thirsk and Jonathan Rowland
The Canada tour was one of more than 30 foreign trips since 2014 in which Andrew promoted Pitch@Palace – he attended a so-called ‘boot camp’ for the project in Toronto and an event at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Duke, known as ‘Air Miles Andy’, left Toronto on May 28, arriving in Farnborough the following day, according to the Court Circular. This exactly matched a six-hour, 13-minute flight recorded for Mr Rowland’s jet.
His schedule had also exactly matched the flight logs of Mr Rowland’s aircraft two months earlier. Andrew arrived at Bahrain International airport on the evening of March 25, according to the Court Circular. Mr Rowland’s Global Express touched down at the same airport at 7.22pm that night.
The Duke visited the Royal Navy’s £40 million support base at Mina Salman and had dinner with the King of Bahrain – and he also attended two Pitch@Palace events.
It was a similar picture in October 2017, when during a four-day visit to Abu Dhabi he combined visits to Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and an international school with three Pitch@Palace events.
This time, it appears he flew home on his friend’s luxury jet. The Court Circular records that he arrived at Luton airport on October 5 – as did Mr Rowland’s Global Express.
Buckingham Palace said: ‘The Sovereign Grant funds official overseas travel by members of the Royal Family, at request of Government. None of the flights detailed were paid for by the Sovereign Grant.’
The Rowlands declined to comment for legal reasons. Farnborough airport said: ‘We do not comment on flights operating from the airport.’
And we can be sure that
this comedown won’t humble him. A man who has spent his entire life shouting
at servants and consorting with sheikhs, oligarchs, and other sleazy characters
is unlikely to suddenly “cease to behave like an apex git.”
United Kingdom: Prince Andrew to be hidden away
The queen’s favorite son is
now barred from public duties.
Prince Andrew has been, to use a new verb, “de-royaled,” said
Jamie Doward in The Observer. The queen’s second son was barred from all
public duties last week following his car-crash interview with the BBC, in
which he attempted to defend his friendship with convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein. Revealing himself to be “arrogant, aloof, and
slow-witted,” the 59-year-old prince expressed zero sympathy for the underage
girls Epstein kept as sex toys. Andrew claimed lamely that he had no recollection
of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the American who says she was pimped out to
the prince at age 17. And he had no good explanation for the four days he
spent partying at the financier’s Manhattan home in 2010, two years after
Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution. As soon
as the interview aired, charities and businesses began racing to sever
their ties with the prince. An overnight pariah, Andrew has now been stripped
of all royal duties. His personal royal flag no longer flies above the palatial
home in Windsor Great Park, and the queen has even canceled the big 60th
birthday bash she was to hold for him next February.
Prince Andrew has been, to use a new verb, “de-royaled,” said
Jamie Doward in The Observer. The queen’s second son was barred from all
public duties last week following his car-crash interview with the BBC, in
which he attempted to defend his friendship with convicted sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein. Revealing himself to be “arrogant, aloof, and
slow-witted,” the 59-year-old prince expressed zero sympathy for the underage
girls Epstein kept as sex toys. Andrew claimed lamely that he had no recollection
of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the American who says she was pimped out to
the prince at age 17. And he had no good explanation for the four days he
spent partying at the financier’s Manhattan home in 2010, two years after
Epstein was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution. As soon
as the interview aired, charities and businesses began racing to sever
their ties with the prince. An overnight pariah, Andrew has now been stripped
of all royal duties. His personal royal flag no longer flies above the palatial
home in Windsor Great Park, and the queen has even canceled the big 60th
birthday bash she was to hold for him next February.
It was
Prince Charles, Andrew’s older brother, who ordered this banishment, said
Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph.
The
Prince of Wales, 71, is preparing to take over from Queen Elizabeth II,
93, and he knows the succession will be a “moment of great vulnerability
for the monarchy.” The palace wants the whole nation to “pull together behind
the new king,” but Andrew’s misjudgments have put the enterprise at risk.
Alarm bells went off at Buckingham Palace last week when, during a televised
leadership debate ahead of the Dec. 12 general election, a questioner
asked if the House of Windsor was still “fit for purpose.” Charles, who was
in New Zealand, quickly phoned his mother and insisted her reputed favorite
child be drummed out for the good of the Crown. “The queen agreed.”
The Prince
of Wales, 71, is preparing to take over from Queen Elizabeth II, 93, and
he knows the succession will be a “moment of great vulnerability for the
monarchy.” The palace wants the whole nation to “pull together behind the
new king,” but Andrew’s misjudgments have put the enterprise at risk.
Alarm bells went off at Buckingham Palace last week when, during a televised
leadership debate ahead of the Dec. 12 general election, a questioner
asked if the House of Windsor was still “fit for purpose.” Charles, who was
in New Zealand, quickly phoned his mother and insisted her reputed favorite
child be drummed out for the good of the Crown. “The queen agreed.”
The
Prince of Wales, 71, is preparing to take over from Queen Elizabeth II,
93, and he knows the succession will be a “moment of great vulnerability
for the monarchy.” The palace wants the whole nation to “pull together behind
the new king,” but Andrew’s misjudgments have put the enterprise at risk.
Alarm bells went off at Buckingham Palace last week when, during a televised
leadership debate ahead of the Dec. 12 general election, a questioner
asked if the House of Windsor was still “fit for purpose.” Charles, who was
in New Zealand, quickly phoned his mother and insisted her reputed favorite
child be drummed out for the good of the Crown. “The queen agreed.”
Let’s not
call this a punishment, said Camilla Long in The Times. Andrew has been relieved
of the most tedious aspects of royal life—“no more opening hospitals or
touring denture factories”—and will continue being pampered at Mummy’s
expense. And we can be sure that this comedown won’t humble him. A man
who has spent his entire life shouting at servants and consorting with
sheikhs, oligarchs, and other sleazy characters is unlikely to suddenly
“cease to behave like an apex git.” That’s why the royal family has to be
restructured, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Prince Charles is said to
favor “a slimmed-down future monarchy, focused on himself, his wife, and
his sons.” What exactly will happen to the dozens of minor royals isn’t
clear—it’s difficult to see Andrew “succeeding in the working world
strictly on his own merits.” Yet something has to change for this tarnished
institution to survive. “If the monarchy cannot put its house in order,
it should not be surprised if the nation ultimately seeks to do it for
them.”
Let’s not
call this a punishment, said Camilla Long in The Times. Andrew has been relieved
of the most tedious aspects of royal life—“no more opening hospitals or
touring denture factories”—and will continue being pampered at Mummy’s
expense. And we can be sure that this comedown won’t humble him. A man who
has spent his entire life shouting at servants and consorting with
sheikhs, oligarchs, and other sleazy characters is unlikely to suddenly
“cease to behave like an apex git.” That’s why the royal family has to be restructured,
said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Prince Charles is said to favor “a
slimmed-down future monarchy, focused on himself, his wife, and his sons.”
What exactly will happen to the dozens of minor royals isn’t clear—it’s difficult
to see Andrew “succeeding in the working world strictly on his own merits.”
Yet something has to change for this tarnished institution to survive.
“If the monarchy cannot put its house in order, it should not be surprised
if the nation ultimately seeks to do it for them.”
Let’s not
call this a punishment, said Camilla Long in The Times. Andrew has been relieved
of the most tedious aspects of royal life—“no more opening hospitals or
touring denture factories”—and will continue being pampered at Mummy’s
expense. And we can be sure that this comedown won’t humble him. A man who
has spent his entire life shouting at servants and consorting with
sheikhs, oligarchs, and other sleazy characters is unlikely to suddenly
“cease to behave like an apex git.” That’s why the royal family has to be restructured,
said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Prince Charles is said to favor “a
slimmed-down future monarchy, focused on himself, his wife, and his sons.”
What exactly will happen to the dozens of minor royals isn’t clear—it’s difficult
to see Andrew “succeeding in the working world strictly on his own merits.”
Yet something has to change for this tarnished institution to survive.
“If the monarchy cannot put its house in order, it should not be surprised
if the nation ultimately seeks to do it for them.”
Let’s not
call this a punishment, said Camilla Long in The Times. Andrew has been relieved
of the most tedious aspects of royal life—“no more opening hospitals or
touring denture factories”—and will continue being pampered at Mummy’s
expense. And we can be sure that this comedown won’t humble him. A man who
has spent his entire life shouting at servants and consorting with
sheikhs, oligarchs, and other sleazy characters is unlikely to suddenly
“cease to behave like an apex git.” That’s why the royal family has to be restructured,
said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Prince Charles is said to favor “a
slimmed-down future monarchy, focused on himself, his wife, and his sons.”
What exactly will happen to the dozens of minor royals isn’t clear—it’s difficult
to see Andrew “succeeding in the working world strictly on his own merits.”
Yet something has to change for this tarnished institution to survive.
“If the monarchy cannot put its house in order, it should not be surprised
if the nation ultimately seeks to do it for them.”
Exposed: The
damning details of Prince Andrew's deals with tax haven tycoons... so does THIS
help explain how he funds his billionaire lifestyle?
·
Duke of York plugged private Luxembourg-based
bank on official trade missions
·
The Prince allowed financier David Rowland to
insert meetings into trade tours
·
Andrew co-owned a business with Rowlands in a
secretive Caribbean tax haven
·
Was to be used to lure Prince's Royal
contacts to invest in tax-free offshore fund
2.5kshares
+14
·
Scandal-hit Prince
Andrew is plunged deeper into crisis today by
a devastating exposé of his business activities by The Mail on Sunday.
We can
reveal how the Duke of York repeatedly exploited his taxpayer-funded role as
Britain's trade envoy to work behind the scenes for his close friend, the
controversial multi-millionaire financier David Rowland.
Bombshell
emails reveal that while on official trade missions meant to promote UK
business, Andrew was quietly plugging a private Luxembourg-based bank for the
super-rich, owned by Rowland and his family.
In an
astonishing conflict of interests, the Prince allowed the Rowlands to shoehorn
meetings into his official trade tours so they could expand their bank and woo
powerful and wealthy clients.
He also
passed them private government documents they had no right to see. It can also
be revealed that, at the time, Andrew co-owned a business with the Rowlands in
a secretive Caribbean tax haven.
It was
to be used to lure the Prince's wealthy Royal contacts to invest in a tax-free
offshore fund.
One
email exchange reveals that when Andrew was facing the sack from his envoy role
because of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, Rowland's son and business lieutenant,
Jonathan, suggested their commercial activities could continue 'under the
radar'. Andrew responded: 'I like your thinking.'
The
devastating revelations come as the Duke faces mounting questions about how he
funds his opulent lifestyle. They follow in the wake of his car-crash TV
interview about his links to Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender
who died in jail this summer while awaiting trial for trafficking underage
girls.
He will
face further pressure tomorrow when an interview with Virginia Roberts, one of
Epstein's victims, airs on BBC1's Panorama. Ms Roberts, who now uses her
married surname Giuffre, claims she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew
when she was 17 – although he has always strenuously denied her claims.
+14
·
Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Roberts: It
was a really scary time
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She
tells the show: 'It was a really scary time in my life. He knows what happened,
I know what happened. And there's only one of us telling the truth.'
Last
night, former MP Norman Baker called for Prince Andrew to be stripped of his
HRH title following this newspaper's investigation into his business links.
And
Chris Bryant, who was a Foreign Office Minister at the time Andrew held his
trade envoy role, demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the Duke's business
behaviour, which he called 'morally offensive'. 'It all just stinks,' said Mr
Bryant. 'I don't think he has ever been able to draw a distinction between his
own personal interest and the national interest. It's morally offensive. Either
the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Public Accounts Committee should launch an
inquiry into this.'
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Nigel
Mills, a Tory member of the Public Accounts Committee before the Election was
called, also demanded an inquiry, adding: 'He clearly was never fit to hold
that office.
'Anyone
in public life knows these rules about separating your own interests from those
of the job you are doing. What he is doing here isn't even close to the line –
it's a million miles over it.'
The scrap
dealer's son who met Queen at Balmoral
By Ian Gallagher
For David 'Spotty' Rowland, a visit to Balmoral to meet
the Queen in the summer of 2010 marked the peak of his social ascent.
Mr Rowland's host that day was his old friend Prince
Andrew, who, having introduced him to his mother, found a secluded spot on the
Deeside estate for the two men to have lunch.
Perhaps the secretive property magnate, then 65, allowed
himself a moment of reflection as he drank in his surroundings.
In addition to counting Royalty among his acquaintances,
he was one of the richest men in Britain and, as the Tories most generous
benefactor – he once paid £20,000 for a portrait of then Prime Minister David
Cameron – had just been appointed party treasurer.
Not bad for a scrap metal dealer's son from South London
who left school without a single qualification.
But just nine days after his Balmoral sojourn (Andrew's
paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein was given a similar tour six years earlier),
Mr Rowland quit before he could take up his new Tory post.
It followed media scrutiny of his business dealings and
colourful private life, and fears he might tarnish the party's reputation.
Ironically, it was his links to Royalty, along with his
cash, that had reassured party chiefs when doubts about his suitability first
emerged.
Starting his working life as an office boy, he bought his
first house at 18, sold it, bought another one, sold that and formed his own
property company.
By the time he was 23, he had made his first million and
he floated his company, Fordham, on the Stock Exchange a year later.
The precocious entrepreneur was dubbed 'Spotty' because
of his relative youth and lingering acne – and the nickname stuck.
His business activities frequently kept him in the
headlines. He was one of the first financiers to spot the potential
money-making value of top soccer clubs, and was the secret figure behind the
£800,000 takeover of Edinburgh Hibernian, parent company of Hibs football club
in the Scottish capital, in 1987.
But the deal turned sour when the company went into
receivership – after having asked thousands of fans to plough their money into
the club.
In addition, he used one of his trusts to buy the
upmarket estate agents Chesterton, which later also went into receivership
after 200 years of trading.
His UK interests were first controlled by companies in
the Bahamas and Panama before they were transferred under the aegis of family
trusts to the tax haven of Guernsey, where Mr Rowland occupies the island's
largest privately owned estate.
His critics speak of his vainglory, which peaked with him
erecting a statue of himself outside his mansion, Havilland Hall, and unveiled
by Prince Andrew. Who else?
Members of the Royal Family visiting the island have
always stayed at Government House, official home of the Lieutenant Governor. On
this occasion, 2005, Andrew stayed with the Rowlands. The official explanation
was that 'it was going to be a late night'.
How the two men first became friends is not known, but,
as with Epstein, there is a strong symbiotic element to the relationship. One
friend of the Prince said: 'Rowland is like an older surrogate brother to
Andrew.'
Like Epstein, Mr Rowland once came to the rescue of the
Duchess of York, paying £40,000 to help clear her debts.
The two men appeared publicly together in 2009. This time
it was the Duke of York's services that were required. He unveiled his friend's
latest acquisition, the Luxembourg arm of an Icelandic bank he snapped up after
it succumbed to the international financial crash.
It was renamed Banque Havilland after his mansion. At the
time Andrew said: 'In the past I have had the pleasure to meet and work with
the Rowland family in the framework of my functions and I wish the family every
success in this new business venture.'
Further links surfaced in 2011 when The Mail on Sunday
revealed that the two men secretly flew to Libya together when the Prince met
Colonel Gaddafi.
Having built a £730 million fortune, Mr Rowland was a tax
exile for more than 30 years but returned to the UK before the 2010 General
Election so he could pump £2.7 million into the Tories' campaign war chest.
Jonathan Rowland, 44, the second of David's eight
children from two marriages, inherited his father's entrepreneurial flair.
He left school at 16 but seized the opportunity of the
dotcom boom of the late 1990s to make £42 million from an internet investment
company called JellyWorks. At one point its shares rose 2,000 per cent in a few
days.
He tried to repeat the success in 2011 with JellyBook. He
launched the investment firm at that year's Monaco Grand Prix, chartering a
161ft yacht with Italian marble floors to schmooze clients.
The business later had to be wound down after Jonathan
suffered a stroke in 2013.
David
Rowland, a 74-year-old property tycoon, was a tax exile for decades and helped
pay off Sarah Ferguson's huge debts.
He quit
as Tory Party treasurer shortly after he was appointed in 2010 amid controversy
surrounding his business affairs.
Leaked
emails from Jonathan Rowland also claim Andrew was due to take a financial
stake in the Rowland family bank he was secretly helping to promote.
The MoS
has also learned that in August, a whistleblower personally emailed Prince
Charles and warned him about his brother's troubling business links with David
Rowland.
Our
investigation reveals for the first time how:
·
Prince Andrew had a 40 per cent stake in a
firm based in the British Virgin Islands called Inverness Asset Management that
was in existence until March this year;
·
A document reveals that 'contacts' of the
company – including Royal families, heads of state, government institutions and
wealthy individuals – would be targeted as potential investors in a separate investment
fund to be based in the Cayman Islands and promising a tax-free income;
·
Prince Andrew allowed Jonathan Rowland to
accompany him on a taxpayer-funded trade mission to China which Mr Rowland then
used to plug his family's bank. The Duke invited Rowland to choose which
meetings he wanted to attend;
·
Rowland inserted into Andrew's China schedule
a meeting with Louis Cheung, the president of Ping An, the world's largest
insurance company, worth an estimated £171 billion, and proposed that they
could become business partners;
·
In an astonishing breach of protocol,
Andrew's aide, Amanda Thirsk, handed the Rowlands a Foreign Office diplomatic
cable intended only for government officials that contained details of Andrew's
one-to-one conversations with senior Chinese politicians;
·
On another occasion, Andrew demanded a
private briefing memo from Treasury chiefs about the Icelandic financial
crisis, then passed it to the Rowlands. Months earlier, they had bought part of
a collapsed Icelandic bank in a £86 million deal;
·
Andrew also took Jonathan Rowland on an
official trade mission to Saudi Arabia where the pair met Prince Sultan bin
Salman bin Abulaziz al Saud, the second son of the country's current monarch.
Following that meeting, Mr Rowland told the Saudi royal, via an aide, that
Andrew was considering becoming a partner in his family's bank and asked him if
he would like a stake in it, too;
·
In one exchange of emails with the Saudi
Prince, Mr Rowland boasted that he acted as a middle man not just for Prince
Andrew but for the British Royal Family;
·
During another taxpayer-funded trade trip,
Prince Andrew lobbied the King of Bahrain about the Rowlands' plan to open an
offshoot of their bank in the Middle Eastern country. He later telephoned an
official to help get the potentially lucrative venture off the ground.
The
devastating revelations come just weeks after Andrew was stripped of his Royal
duties amid anger over his links to Epstein and his calamitous BBC interview.
There
are also suggestions that Andrew may have to resign his role leading
Pitch@Palace, his pet project which matches investors with tech start-up
companies, after it emerged he was entitled to a two per cent share of any
investment deal struck.
He says
he has never taken advantage of that clause. The son of a scrap metal dealer,
David Rowland, whose nickname is 'Spotty', made his first million aged 24 and
went on to amass a property and investment fortune worth a reported £612
million. He and his son Jonathan are ranked 226th in the Sunday Times Rich List
Andrew
and publicity-shy David Rowland have been friends since at least 2005. That
year, the Prince unveiled a bronze statue of the financier in the grounds of
Havilland Hall, Mr Rowland's sprawling estate in Guernsey. In 2009, Andrew
publicly launched the Rowlands' bank in Luxembourg.
Bought
from the ashes of a collapsed Icelandic financial institution, it was renamed
Banque Havilland, after Mr Rowland's Channel Island home. It offered discreet
private banking services for the world's billionaires.
Mr
Rowland was invited to Balmoral as Andrew's guest in 2010 and reportedly met
the Queen and had tea with Prince Charles. Four months later, Mr Rowland paid
£40,000 to help clear the massive debts of the Duke's former wife Sarah
Ferguson.
Last
night, Norman Baker, a former MP who recently published a damning book about
Royal finances, said last night: 'This is outrageous behaviour by Prince
Andrew. Any Minister who behaved in this way would be summarily sacked. Even an
MP who behaved in this way would face questions from the Commons Standards
Committee. We have all had enough of Prince Andrew. He should have his HRH
designation removed. As far as I am concerned he should be persona non grata
and not be seen in any way to represent this country.'
The MoS
approached Buckingham Palace with the results of our investigation last Monday,
detailing 24 questions for the Duke.
Six
days later, the Palace issued the following statement: 'The Duke was the UK's
Special Representative for International Trade and Investment between 2001 and
July 2011 and in that time the aim, and that of his office, was to promote
Britain and British interests overseas, not the interests of individuals.'
The
Duke did not provide a comment for publication, and the Rowlands declined to
comment for legal reasons.
A secretive Caribbean tax haven and an
investment fund for the Duke of York's super rich contacts. So does this help
explain how he funds his billionaire lifestyle?
+14
·
Prince
Andrew and his friend, the controversial property tycoon David Rowland, jointly
owned a company in a secretive Caribbean tax haven that was to be used to cash in
on the Duke's Royal and political connections.
An
extraordinary document, seen by The Mail on Sunday, reveals how the firm was
registered in the British Virgin Islands with a plan to persuade Prince
Andrew's wealthy 'contacts' to sink millions of pounds into an offshore
investment fund – promising them tax-free income.
Our
revelation raises troubling questions about the Prince's mysterious finances,
which have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of his public humiliation
over his links with Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire sex offender.
There
have been questions about the source of Andrew's wealth because his only
official income amounted to a £20,000-a-year Royal Navy pension and a reported
£249,000 paid privately each year by the Queen to run his official office.
For a
decade, the Duke of York worked full-time as Britain's roving 'trade
ambassador', sent on taxpayer-funded trips aimed at encouraging foreign
investment in UK companies.
The
official role enabled Andrew to travel the globe, rubbing shoulders with
wealthy business leaders, sprinkling his Royal stardust on influential
politicians and heads of state.
Now it
can be revealed that at the same time as carrying out his
Government-backed duties, the Queen's second son was in business with former
British tax-exile Rowland and his son Jonathan.
Worth a
reported £612 million, the pair head a sprawling family business empire.
David
Rowland owns the largest private estate in Guernsey, which boasts a huge bronze
statue of the financier unveiled by Prince Andrew. Nicknamed 'Spotty' after
becoming a millionaire by the youthful age of 24, David Rowland was once
described as being 'like an older surrogate brother' to the Duke.
Nine
years ago, the cigar-loving tycoon stumped up £40,000 to help pay off the vast
debts of Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson. The Rowlands' plan, according to a
document seen by this newspaper, was to woo the super-rich contacts Andrew
amassed using his Royal status into investing millions of pounds in the
potentially lucrative offshore fund.
David
Rowland makes no secret of the fact that he has acted as a financial adviser to
Andrew. But the detailed five-page business prospectus reveals for the first
time that the Prince held a 40 per cent stake in a company owned by Rowland's
family business, Blackfish Capital Management.
Called
Inverness Asset Management (IAM), it was registered in the British Virgin
Islands, a stunning paradise playground for billionaires and one of the world's
most notorious tax havens.
IAM was
set up, the document says, because of the 'very long' and 'successful'
relationship between 'DR [David Rowland] and HRH Prince Andrew.'
+14
·
+14
·
The
Duke of York also enjoys the title the Earl of Inverness. The company was to
target super rich investors, many of whom Andrew would have met during his
globetrotting trade role and official Royal duties, and persuade them to put
money into a fund structured in the Cayman Islands, another tax haven.
Only
those with at least $ 1million (£775,000) to spare would be allowed to invest
in the scheme called The Blackfish Money Plus+ Fund. The product was not to be
sold to the 'wider public'.
The
2007 document goes on to explain a plan to exploit 'contacts of IAM, consisting
of Royal Families, HNW [high net worth] families, Heads of State and Government
institutions.'
The
revelation that Andrew was involved in a company seeking investment into a
controversial tax haven will heap more pressure on the beleaguered Prince –
especially given his role between 2001 and 2011 was to promote British firms
and inward investment into the UK.
Secrecy
surrounding businesses' activities in the British Virgin Islands make it
impossible to know if the venture ever made any money for Andrew, or if the
Blackfish Money Plus+ Fund ever operated.
But The
Mail on Sunday has discovered that IAM existed until March this year.
Serious
questions have been raised about how Andrew funds his extravagant lifestyle
after he told Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in his damaging BBC interview
last month that his tawdry association with billionaire sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein had been a 'very useful' entree into a world awash with wealthy and
glamorous business people.
The
Prince seemed to infer that the people Epstein introduced him to could assist
with his official trade role. However, it has been suggested they also had the
ability to enhance his own personal business interests.
Since
leaving the Royal Navy in 2001, according to reports, Andrew has leveraged his
Royal status and the wealthy contacts made during the course of official work
on behalf of British taxpayers to act as a facilitator, helping businessmen set
up lucrative deals all over the world.
+14
·
If so,
the deals and the commission he earned on them have remained secret but last
week were cited as an explanation as to how Andrew appears to have amassed
enormous wealth.
On
Sunday, in a highly unusual intervention, a friend attempted to lay to rest
suggestions that Andrew had exploited his Royal status to secure
multimillion pound commissions.
The
friend told The Sunday Times: 'The fact is that all his wealth ultimately derives
from gifts from the Queen and none of it comes from business dealings… he has
never earned or expected any introduction fees or commissions for arranging or
fixing business deals either while acting as a UK trade envoy or at any other
point in his life.'
However,
in recent years, 'Air Miles' Andy, as he has been nicknamed, has lived like a
billionaire, holidaying on luxury yachts and travelling the world by helicopter
and private jet.
No
doubt he has enjoyed the free hospitality of some of his wealthy friends but in
addition to this a total of £7.5 million has been spent refurbishing Royal
Lodge, his spacious home in Windsor.
And in
2014, he and his ex-wife acquired a £13 million luxury lodge in the exclusive
Swiss ski resort of Verbier. Called Chalet Helora, it has seven bedrooms,
living rooms bedecked with furs and antiques, a 650 sq ft indoor swimming pool,
sauna and sun terrace.
Guests
have previously rented it out for £22,000 a week, and neighbouring homes are
owned by Sir Richard Branson, the singer James Blunt and a host of ski-loving
billionaires.
Today,
Andrew boasts a collection of expensive wristwatches including several Rolexes
and Cartiers, a £150,000 Patek Philippe and a £12,000 Apple Watch.
A small
fleet of cars includes a new green Bentley. Quite how he has funded all this
has never been clear. At the very least, his involvement in the offshore fund
and his links to the mega-rich Rowlands offer yet another possible explanation.
Last
night, Andrew faced criticism for his involvement in a firm in a tax haven
while he was working as Britain's trade ambassador.
There
have been serious concerns over the lack of transparency in the financial
service sector in places such as the British Virgin Islands. Earlier this year,
the Tax Justice Network pressure group ranked 64 countries based on how much
tax avoidance they enabled, taking into account the size of their
economies. The British Virgin Islands topped the list.
Blackfish
Money Plus+ Fund
IAM is a company owned 60 per cent by Blackfish and 40
per cent by HRH Prince Andrew.
Blackfish will work with IAM marketing the funds.
Introductions will largely be from contacts of
IAM, consisting of Royal Families, HNW families and Heads
of State and government institutions. Income is tax free.
The
proposed fund made no secret of the tax-free profits on offer. The document
leaked to The Mail on Sunday says: 'Income is tax-free so far as the Fund is
concerned.'
It
added: 'Money Plus+ Funds will appeal to investors seeking security of capital,
low risk and active management of their cash deposits.'
The
document makes clear that Blackfish is looking for 'an established
international bank' to become its partner in managing the fund.
As well
as introducing clients, IAM would also act as a 'co-adviser' to the fund.
Company records from the British Virgin Islands, obtained by The Mail on
Sunday, show that Inverness Asset Management was registered in the tax haven in
April 2007.
Its
address was listed as a PO Box in 'Sea Meadow House' in Road Town, the capital
of the BVI. The company was only dissolved in March this year.
The
leaked document also shows that the Blackfish Capital Money Plus+ Fund was due
to be structured in a type of company in the Cayman Islands known as a
segregated portfolio company (SPC). Company records obtained by this newspaper
show that five different SPCs were registered between November 2006 and March
2008 in the Cayman Islands with 'Blackfish Capital' and 'Fund' in their titles.
It is
unknown, however, whether any of these included the Blackfish Money Plus+ Fund.
Chris
Bryant, a former Foreign Office Minister in Gordon Brown's government, said the
revelation of Andrew's stake in IAM is more damaging than the disclosure in the
2017 'Paradise Papers' that money from the Queen's private estate had been
invested in a Cayman Islands fund.
'This
is far more significant because it is a senior member of the Royal Family
engaged in offshore shenanigans,' he said. 'The word that comes to mind is
entitlement, really. Because he is a Duke, he can get away with anything.'
The
Duke of York declined to provide a comment for publication. Jonathan Rowland
declined to comment for legal reasons.
Duke used his position as Britain's trade
envoy to help tycoon plug private bank (based in a tax haven) on official trip
to China
As the
Duke of York slowly walked his youngest daughter Eugenie up the aisle last
year, they passed a chubby-faced, grey-haired man standing in the front row of
the congregation, just yards from the nervous groom.
From
his position alongside supermodel Kate Moss, David 'Spotty' Rowland leaned
forward and smiled affectionately as the Princess joined Jack Brooksbank in the
magnificent St George's Chapel.
Despite his prominent place, few would have
recognised the diminutive tycoon. After all, Mr Rowland, 74, is notoriously
publicity-shy and spent much of his professional life successfully avoiding
being photographed in public. This Royal
Wedding, however, was an important enough occasion
for him to step out of the shadows.
Andrew's close friendship with Mr Rowland, a
former tax exile for more than 30 years, was already controversial. The Mail on
Sunday has previously revealed how the secretive financier helped pay off the
Duchess of York's massive debts – just months after he met the Queen and Prince
Charles at Balmoral – and how he and Andrew
secretly flew to Libya together.
+14
·
But the
MoS today reveals their financial relationship goes much deeper. Our
investigation exposes how the Duke used his position as Britain's trade envoy
to push the business interests of Mr Rowland and his family – in particular
their private bank based in the tax haven of Luxembourg.
Prince
Andrew's public role as the UK's roving trade ambassador between 2001 and 2011
was a high-profile position in which he was supposed to promote British
business and attract inward investment on taxpayer-funded trips overseas. But
Mr Rowland's foreign bank, which manages the wealth of some of the world's
super-rich, would hardly qualify as the type of enterprise that Andrew was
supposed to champion.
Emails
seen by this newspaper show that on one official taxpayer-funded trip to China,
Andrew was accompanied by Jonathan Rowland, David's 44-year-old son and
business lieutenant, and helped him target potential new wealthy clients.
+14
·
Six
months earlier, Andrew had opened the Rowlands' new venture – named Banque
Havilland – to great fanfare. It had previously been the Luxembourg branch of
Kaupthing, an Icelandic bank that collapsed amid the international financial
crisis, but was rescued by the Rowland family and renamed after David's
palatial home in Guernsey.
Its
first annual report declared that it would offer discreet private banking for
'ultra high net worth' customers and boasted a picture of Andrew standing
alongside David Rowland, its honorary president, and Jonathan, its chief
executive.
The
Rowlands wanted their new bank to 'attract a more affluent client base' and
expand its reach 'to new locations'. The leaked emails show that an early
target was the economic powerhouse of China.
Fortuitously,
their good friend Prince Andrew, whose Royal status could impress potential
clients and open doors, was due to visit China on an official taxpayer-funded
trade envoy mission in March 2010.
The
official reason for Andrew's three-day trip was to witness the signing of a $35
billion gas deal between BG Group, the British multinational oil and gas
company, and the China National Overseas Oil Corporation, a huge state-owned
oil firm.
Britain
was still reeling from the 2008 financial crash and boosting trade with booming
countries like China was vital.
With
both his daughters at university, Andrew, who had been trade envoy for more
than eight years, had plenty of time on his hands to help.
Senior
Government officials drew up a packed schedule of meetings with some of China's
top powerbrokers. But while they were putting the finishing touches to the
crucial trade mission, Amanda Thirsk, Andrew's then deputy private secretary,
was busy organising Jonathan Rowland's involvement in the trip.
The
email chain shows how Ms Thirsk sent the Duke his itinerary on March 10 – a
fortnight before the visit. Extraordinarily, the next day Andrew forwarded the
schedule to Jonathan Rowland and asked which events he wished to attend.
'This
is my outline programme for China,' he said. 'Which events do you need to be
at? Can you let Amanda know as we would just need to alert them to you coming.'
Mr
Rowland replied that he would 'like to come to everything you let me come to'.
+14
·
'If it
[is] not relevant for our business I will sit quietly and if it's not possible
I will not join. Leave it to you guys to decide,' he added.
But, in
fact, that wasn't enough for the Rowlands.
In
another jaw-dropping message, Jonathan Rowland emailed Ms Thirsk with a
proposal. He asked for a meeting with a major Chinese company to be inserted
into Andrew's schedule – and suggested that it could prove profitable for the
Duke.
'I
wanted to invite Louis Cheung CEO of Ping An insurance to meet with myself and
the Duke for an hour on the trip.
'Is
their [sic] a slot available as he will travel from Shenzhen. Ping An is the
largest insurance company in China and a good partner for all of us going
forward.'
Although
not a household name in the UK, Ping An is now the world's largest insurance
company, according to Forbes, the American business magazine, worth an
estimated £171 billion.
It is
the world's seventh biggest public company – one place behind US tech giant
Apple – and its headquarters in the city of Shenzhen is housed in the world's
fourth highest skyscraper, 961ft taller than The Shard in London.
Mr
Rowland's request for a Royal audience with Ping An's boss didn't come out of
the blue. The leaked emails reveal that six weeks earlier, Jonathan Rowland had
not only met Louis Cheung but had begun to lay the groundwork for a meeting
with Prince Andrew.
They
met at an event in Shenzhen on February 8, 2010, and Mr Rowland followed up
their encounter with an email in which he ambitiously pitched for business.
'We
recently acquired a Bank in Luxembourg and renamed it Banque Havilland SA. Our
focus is on private banking and wealth management with a global footprint and
client base,' he wrote, attaching to the email a 'simple presentation' about
the bank.
'I
would like to explore ways of working with Ping An in the future and would like
to invite you to meet with me and HRH Prince Andrew in Beijing in March.
'The
Rowland family are the exclusive adviser to HRH and all his business interests
and investments. Ping An could potentially be a partner for our Private Banking
activities in China and we could easily find a way to assist you with
operations or transactions in the Middle East and Europe.'
The
email, which was not copied to Prince Andrew, also highlighted how the bank had
a 'significant joint venture' in Abu Dhabi and 'relationships with all the
Royal Families in the region for over 20 years'.
Back in
London, Amanda Thirsk agreed to find time for a meeting between Mr Rowland, the
Duke and Mr Cheung – despite Andrew's packed schedule.
'That
should be fine,' she wrote to Jonathan Rowland on March 15. 'Am expecting a
re-draft of the programme from Beijing tomorrow so will give you a slot based
on that.' After being offered several choices, Mr Rowland opted for lunch at a
hotel in Beijing on Wednesday, March 24.
Prince
Andrew and Ms Thirsk flew out in a chartered jet from Farnborough airport on
March 23, arriving in Beijing the following morning. Emails between Ms Thirsk
and Mr Rowland show he was due to arrive in the city the same morning, possibly
flying in with the Duke.
The
Court Circular, Buckingham Palace's official list of Royal engagements, shows
that one of the Duke's first appointments on March 24 was with Mr Cheung, 55,
who had been Ping An's president since 2003. Intriguingly, it omits to say
whether Mr Rowland attended – but an email seen by the MoS suggests he did.
'It was
good to see you in Beijing with HRH 2 weeks ago,' Mr Rowland said in a message
to Mr Cheung on April 7.
'He was
very impressed by your insight into China and the rest of the world and is keen
to keep contact with you through me. Let's keep in touch and start to plan the
ideas we discussed.'
The
meeting was held in one of Beijing's two glitzy Ritz-Carlton hotels, although
the Court Circular does not reveal which one. Either would have been a suitable
venue for the then fourth-in-line to the Throne: the five-star Ritz-Carlton,
Beijing, boasts a £7,700-a-night presidential suite, while its sister hotel in
the city's Financial District has a huge luxury spa and an 18th floor lounge
with spectacular views of the city.
They also met our ambassador – a privilege enjoyed only by a select
few
The
emails expose an extraordinary conflict of interest in which the Duke leveraged
his position as this country's trade envoy to act as a facilitator for the
Rowlands.
They
are also bound to raise questions over whether Prince Andrew stood to
personally gain financially from Banque Havilland's expanded operations.
Helped
by this key meeting, Mr Rowland was now on first-name terms and in regular
email contact with one of China's most powerful businessmen. By November 2011,
the pair had struck up a friendly enough relationship for Mr Rowland to ask Mr
Cheung whether he was available to 'catch up for a beer?' in Hong Kong. 'No
pressure just saying hello,' he added.
Meanwhile,
Andrew helped Mr Rowland make another influential contact during the trip.
The
emails show how the banker was introduced to Gao Xiqing, president,
vice-chairman and chief investment officer of the China Investment Corporation
(CIC) – a huge sovereign wealth fund which was established in 2007 to manage
China's vast foreign exchange reserves. A massive global investor, it has
assets of more than $940 billion and owns ten per cent of Heathrow Airport.
In an
email sent later in the year to Mr Xiqing, which was not copied to Prince
Andrew, Jonathan Rowland gave the impression that his family offered financial
advice to the entire British Royal Family.
'We met
with HRH Prince Andrew earlier this year,' Mr Rowland reminded Mr Xiqing, in an
email sent in October 2010. 'As you may remember our family act, as well as for
others, as financial advisor to the British Royal Family, in particular Prince
Andrew...
'Through
our bank in Luxembourg we are very active at the moment in private banking for
some Chinese nationals and corporations.'
The
Court Circular shows that the Duke of York met Mr Xiqing in Beijing on the
morning of March 25. An email seen by this paper also shows that Ms Thirsk told
Mr Rowland that the Duke was happy for him to join five 'non official events',
which included a 'CIC Call' on March 25.
Royal
accounts show the cost to the taxpayer of Andrew's charter flight to China –
and then on to the United Arab Emirates for a day, where he attended the Dubai
World Cup horse race – was £23,586. The trip cost UK Trade and Investment, a Government
department, an extra £7,700.
But for
Andrew's friends, the Rowlands, the visit appears to have been worth it –
opening doors and helping them forge potentially important business
relationships.
Seven
months later, in October 2010, Jonathan Rowland, this time accompanied by his
father, returned to China. A flurry of emails in the days before the trip
showed how Jonathan arranged a new round of meetings with some of the
influential contacts he had met in March.
A
leaked schedule of their visit reveals that the pair secured dinner with Ping
An's boss Louis Cheung in Shenzhen and lunch with the 'Chairman of CIC' in
Beijing. They also landed a meeting with Sebastian Wood, Britain's ambassador
to China, in his grand residence in Beijing – a privilege enjoyed by only a
select few British businessmen visiting the city.
'Very
happy to get together,' Mr Wood wrote to Jonathan Rowland. 'Would you and your
father like to come over [to] the Residence for coffee or tea?'
But
there was also another social engagement to arrange. On the afternoon of
October 17, Prince Andrew arrived in Hong Kong to kick off another trade envoy
trip to the Far East – just seven months after his last. Perhaps understandably
after a draining 12-hour flight, the Court Circular did not list any
engagements for the Duke on the day he arrived.
The
leaked emails do, however, reveal that the Duke had one appointment scheduled
that night: dinner with David and Jonathan Rowland.
Tycoon Jonathan Rowland told Arab prince he
was trying to lure as an investor: 'We advise HRH exclusively on all business
matters..and often act as an intermediary for the Royal Family'
On a
hot Arabian night, the Red Sea sparkled silver as a mile-wide firework display
lit up the sky. For the King of Saudi Arabia, the lavish opening ceremony of a
new science and technology university in Jeddah was the culmination of a
25-year dream. King Abdullah's hope was that the research centre would become a
beacon of tolerance in the troubled Middle East.
Prince
Andrew, who watched the dazzling pyrotechnics from VIP seats, had less lofty
aspirations. As Britain's trade envoy, he was leading a delegation of more than
20 vice-chancellors from UK universities, as well as representing the Queen.
The event was a good opportunity for Britain to further its relationship with
the oil-rich kingdom.
But
surrounded by foreign royals and dignitaries, the trip was also an opportunity
for the Duke to push the commercial interests of his business partners, David
and Jonathan Rowland. An astonishing chain of leaked emails seen by this
newspaper reveal a controversial blurring of his public duties and private
interests on the trip, as he lobbied the King of Bahrain on behalf of his
friends.
+14
·
It was
just one part of a push by the Duke to help the Rowlands fulfil their plan of
launching a Middle Eastern banking operation – one which the emails show Andrew
was due to have a stake in. The Duke had been working with the Rowlands for
several years. Publicly, the pair were described as his financial
advisers.
In July
2009, the Rowlands had bought a private bank, Banque Havilland, and were
planning to expand its activities to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Andrew would
only be in Saudi Arabia for two days – but it was enough time to pull strings.
Buckingham
Palace's Court Circular shows that the Duke arrived in Jeddah on September 22,
2009, for the launch of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
There he rubbed shoulders with world leaders, including Syrian tyrant Bashar
al-Assad.
As luck
would have it, the King of Bahrain was among the guests. Whether he and Andrew
talked at the ceremony, or held a more formal meeting elsewhere, is unclear.
Either way, the Duke found a way to engage the King in a discussion about the
Rowlands' plans.
This
was an extraordinary move: lobbying foreign monarchs on behalf of his own
business associates was certainly not part of his remit as UK trade envoy, or
as a senior member of the Royal Family on a taxpayer-funded trip.
Banque
Havilland was an odd choice of a business to champion. Established in
Luxembourg, another tax haven, the bank was unapologetic about its aim of
managing the wealth of 'ultra-high net worth' billionaires.
+14
·
The
bank only established a London branch in 2013, while David Rowland had been a
tax exile for much of his business career until returning to London in 2009.
Before flying home, Andrew picked up the phone to a former aide, now
conveniently a senior official at the Bahrain Economic Development Board, and
told him what the Rowlands wanted.
During
his conversation with Steve Harrison, his former deputy private secretary,
Andrew let it be known that he had personally discussed the issue with
Bahrain's King. This was enough of a steer for Mr Harrison to get the ball
rolling. Soon he was emailing Jonathan Rowland volunteering his services.
'The
Duke of York telephoned me from Saudi Arabia last week to relay a conversation
that he had with His Majesty The King of Bahrain in Jeddah about opening an
office here,' he wrote. 'That news has not filtered down to me from the Royal
Court, but I am obviously keen to ensure you get the best possible service
here, including the type of licence that best suits your intended operations.'
Attached
to his email to Jonathan Rowland was a helpful copy of the Central Bank of
Bahrain's 'online rulebook' and a register of rival foreign financial houses in
the region.
Mr
Harrison also included a crib sheet about the different types of bank licences
available, adding he would be happy to arrange a meeting with the relevant
regulator. On October 14, 2009, Rowland replied to Harrison suggesting he and
his father 'swing by' Bahrain and meet royal aides. Although he did not copy
the Duke into his response, he claimed Prince Andrew was 'facilitating' the
whole project.
'We
would be keen to pursue an office for Banque Havilland in Bahrain facilitated
by both HRH and his Majesty. We are due in Abu Dhabi on 28th-2nd November.
Maybe we could swing by Bahrain and meet with the regulator and the King's
people and get the ball rolling?'
The
Rowlands' ambitions did not stop in Bahrain. They were also eager to pursue
opportunities in Saudi Arabia and wanted Prince Andrew on the case. Two months
later Andrew would be back in the Middle East. This time, there was no big
state occasion to attend, instead a key focus of the trip would be to help the
Rowlands – and Jonathan Rowland was invited to attend.
The
leaked email trail about the visit begins on October 14. Jonathan Rowland
emailed senior Saudi government official Amr Al-Dabbagh, chairman of the Board
of Directors at the powerful Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority
(SAGIA), proposing they get together.
Under
the subject line 'Duke of York', Jonathan Rowland wrote: 'Amr. Hope you are
well. After having spoken with the DOY he suggested we get together to discuss
our newly acquired bank in Luxembourg investing in Saudi Arabia and in
particular opening a branch/representative office in Riyadh.
·
'We
would be keen also to discuss possible [sic] applying for an Investment Banking
License. Can you propose a convenient time for us to do so? We are due to be in
Abu Dhabi at the F1 race and Bahrain afterwards if that is of any use?'
Mr
Al-Dabbagh replied a few days later, eager to help. In the fortnight that
followed, there were various attempts to co-ordinate diaries, taking Prince
Andrew's schedule as a starting point.
When it
became clear that tying it in with the trip to Abu Dhabi for the Grand Prix was
not going to work out, Jonathan Rowland proposed an alternative date.
Emphasising
the Duke's involvement, he told Mr Al-Dabbagh: 'My father and I met with the
Duke last night for dinner and he had given us a date 14-15 November to visit
you together rather than after F1. Does this work for you? He will contact you
direct but I am pre-empting that.'
This
did the trick. Excitedly, the Rowlands began making arrangements to fly to
Saudi on November 14, using the Prince's deputy private secretary, Amanda
Thirsk, to do some of their legwork.
Aide forced
out over Newsnight interview leaked sensitive papers
One of Prince Andrew's most senior aides leaked a
diplomatic telegram to his close friend and business associate, The Mail on
Sunday can reveal.
In an astonishing breach of protocol, Amanda Thirsk
forwarded Jonathan Rowland a Foreign Office cable that included details of
one-to-one conversations between the Duke and leading Chinese politicians about
UK-China trade relations.
She emailed the telegram after Mr Rowland accompanied
Andrew on a taxpayer-funded trade mission to China and used his extraordinary
access to try to land lucrative new clients for the foreign bank his family
owned.
The revelation will heap pressure on Ms Thirsk, who was
blamed for orchestrating Andrew's disastrous BBC interview about his links with
paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
A formidable ex-banker, Ms Thirsk lost her job as the
Duke's private secretary in the wake of his catastrophic media appearance. She
will continue to run Pitch, Andrew's business mentoring initiative.
Leaked documents show that on April 27, 2010, Ms Thirsk,
then Andrew's deputy private secretary, forwarded Jonathan Rowland an
unclassified but 'sensitive' diplomatic cable written by Sebastian Wood, the
UK's ambassador to China.
Mr Wood had sent the telegram almost a month earlier to
London via the Foreign Office's secure 'e-Gram' messaging system.
It had been written for other diplomats plus officials at
the Treasury and UK Trade and Investment, the Government body which oversaw the
Duke of York's trade envoy work.
The cable was a report on Andrew's three-day trade
mission to China in March 2010, detailing face-to-face talks which had been
arranged with Wang Qishan, China's vice premier, and Chen Deming, the commerce
minister.
It also reported that Andrew used the trip to introduce a
business associate to the China Investment Corporation – a giant Chinese
sovereign wealth fund.
'He called privately on the Deputy Chairman of the China
Investment Corporation to introduce a British business acquaintance,' Wood
wrote.
It outlined how Andrew raised the concerns of British
firms about the 'business environment' in China and discussed how the UK
Government wanted more Chinese companies to list on the London Stock Exchange.
The cable also detailed a tetchy lunch between the Duke
and Fu Ying, vice minister for foreign affairs and China's former ambassador to
the UK.
Thirsk, 54, has been fiercely loyal to the Duke for 15
years and headed his all-woman inner circle of advisers and aides dubbed
'Andy's Angels'.
The mother of three was taken on in 2004 as his 'office
controller' and became his private secretary – or gatekeeper – in 2012.
Charles Crawford, a former UK ambassador to Poland, said:
'Anyone in the system, including members of the Royal Household, knows
perfectly well not to share official documents outside the system – and
sometimes with people within the system – unless there's a very good reason to
do it. Then they should think hard about how they share it.
'It's your job to be careful. The Foreign Office has the
famous unnamed newspaper common sense test: if this e-document I am pressing
Send on appears splashed in the newspaper, will it create a ghastly mess?
'Someone here may have failed that simple test.'
On
November 11, a senior SAGIA official wrote to her, enclosing details of the
bank licensing process in Saudi Arabia 'to pass to the Banque Havilland
Team'.
'Would
you please let us know when on the 15th His Royal Highness, the Duke of York,
and the Banque Havilland team would like to meet?' the official asked.
Thirsk,
who became the Duke's private secretary in 2012 but who is now switching roles
following his disastrous BBC interview, forwarded the message 'in confidence'
to Margaret Morrow, one of the team at Banque Havilland. Ms Morrow
sent it on to her boss, Jonathan Rowland, suggesting he tell Ms Thirsk 'what
she needs to do'.
The
Prince arrived at Riyadh International Airport on the evening of November 14,
2009. The exact nature of his visit remains ambiguous. In December 2010, the
Government produced a list of the Duke's overseas trade envoy trips which had
been undertaken 'in agreement with and in support of' government objectives.
This trip was not on that list.
And yet
Buckingham Palace's Court Circular, which is approved by the Queen, records the
Prince arrived in Riyadh in his role as the UK's 'Special Representative for
International Trade and Investment' – his official trade envoy title. Whatever
the status of his trip, the Duke had pressing business. On the morning of
November 15, he attended a meeting with representatives of SAGIA – just as had
been planned.
Afterwards,
Al-Dabbagh wrote to Jonathan Rowland saying it had been a pleasure to host his
'delegation' and that he was looking forward to working together. He made clear
the Rowland's bank licence application would be fast-tracked.
'I…
expect a robust execution to be developed by my team to ensure we move ahead as
fast as you would like to – on licensing and on mutually beneficial investment
strategies,' he told Rowland.
Thanks
to the Duke, the Rowlands were well on their way to opening a branch of their
new bank in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But the trip also offered another
golden opportunity for the Rowlands' business. What if the Duke could persuade
a Saudi royal to become a partner in the venture?
The
evening after the SAGIA meeting, Andrew fortuitously had dinner with one of the
more charismatic members of the Saudi royal family: Prince Sultan bin Salman bin
Abdulaziz al Saud.
A
former air force pilot, Prince Sultan is the second son of the current King
Salman. Prince Sultan was the first Arab and Muslim to fly in space, when he
joined the crew of the Nasa space shuttle Discovery in 1985. But it was as the
kingdom's then tourism chief that he hosted Andrew. It is unclear whether
Jonathan Rowland also attended, but the leaked emails make clear he did meet
Prince Sultan during the two-day trip.
Following
the trip, on November 24, 2009, Jonathan Rowland emailed Prince Sultan, stating
that Prince Andrew had personally suggested the Saudi Prince become a business
'partner' in a planned expansion of Banque Havilland. In the message, Rowland
claimed that both Andrew and the Saudi Prince would be actively involved in the
bank's proposed new operation.
'It was
a pleasure meeting you in Riyadh last week with HRH Prince Andrew. As I briefly
mentioned we recently acquired a bank in Luxembourg to add to our Family office
and we will be looking to expand into KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia]. HRH
suggested that you might like to become our partner in KSA, and like him, have
an involvement in the operation we create,' he wrote.
While
Saudi Arabia had long been a defence and trade ally of the UK, the regime's
questionable human rights record made diplomatic relations delicate. A private
business relationship involving the Queen's son and a member of the Saudi Royal
Family would be hugely controversial.
As he
continued with his pitch, Jonathan Rowland made another striking claim: not
only did the Rowlands represent Andrew, he said, they also represented the
wider British Royal Family.
'The
Rowland Family has been investing globally for 45 years through my Father and
more recently myself and our offices in London, Guernsey and Luxembourg. We
advise HRH exclusively on all his business matters and travel with him
regularly and often act as an intermediary between the British Royal Family and
other families around the World including Royal families and heads of state,'
he wrote.
In the
run-up to Christmas, Rowland continued to pursue the business opportunity. In a
further comment, he proposed that Andrew could have a stake in the proposed new
banking business. In an email to one of Prince Sultan's aides, he suggested the
'three families' – the British Royals, Prince Sultan's family, and the Rowlands
– could work together around the world.
'As I
mentioned… we are keen to expand our banking activities into Bahrain and Saudi
Arabia. To this extent our thoughts/proposals are that His Royal Highness
[Prince Sultan] considers becoming an equity partner in the subsidiary in
Bahrain/Saudi Arabia (as is the HRH the Duke of York) and the three families
work together in the region.'
In a
final push, Rowland emphasised how valuable it was to have the Queen's son on
board. 'With our close links to HRH DOY we have many opportunities and
possibilities other institutions/families are unable to execute,' he wrote.
Duke and his close friend Jonathan Rowland
discussed secretly continuing business relationship 'under the radar' to escape
media scrutiny, leaked messages reveal
Prince
Andrew and his friend Jonathan Rowland discussed secretly continuing their
controversial business relationship 'under the radar' to escape media scrutiny.
Leaked
messages reveal Andrew and Rowland discussed how the Duke would be free to act
'without much accountability' if public pressure over the Jeffrey Epstein
scandal forced him to quit his role as the UK's trade envoy.
The
revelations might leave some wondering how the Prince might conduct his affairs
now he has effectively been sacked from public duties by the Queen.
Earlier
this month the Duke, 59, was ditched as patron of a string of charities and
organisations, and his cherished Pitch@Palace business project was kicked out of
its offices at Buckingham Palace.
+14
·
In
February 2011, Andrew was again in the eye of a media storm after this
newspaper revealed, for the first time, the now infamous picture of him with
his arm around the bare waist of Virginia Roberts, a victim of convicted
paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Two weeks
later, the MoS revealed that Jonathan Rowland's father David had secretly
helped pay off the Duchess of York's debts. The exposé put the close ties
between the Duke and the Rowlands under the spotlight.
Questions
were raised about why Andrew had opened their private bank in Luxembourg. For
the notoriously publicity-shy Rowlands, being dragged into the controversy that
surrounded Andrew was an uncomfortable experience.
'It
never ends!!,' an exasperated Jonathan Rowland wrote to the Duke in March 2011.
'I had Mail and Telegraph on all day. Just read the stories doesn't seem too
bad all things considered. Told them you attended bank as Trade Envoy
supporting a British owned business.'
+14
·
'Thank
you,' replied Andrew. 'There is a real case of vindictiveness in this and I'm
sorry for causing you trouble.'
There
was no question, however, of the Rowlands cutting ties with their influential
friend. 'Don't worry we are behind you,' Mr Rowland wrote. 'We just need to
reinvent the relationship to circumvent these idiots.'
Later,
the Duke asked Mr Rowland's advice for how he should handle the continuing
controversy. His friend offered two suggestions, the first of which was
standard advice for handling a crisis.
'Lay
low for a while carry on with less engagements and slowly build the profile
back up,' he wrote. 'Avoid difficult people for a bit, we can always take
messages, and play straight.'
His
second idea, however, was less conventional: 'Or you could put your Trade
position to a national vote, you would win, and then carry on as normal as you
have a public mandate.
'If it
goes wrong you resign and we carry on completely under the radar of everybody
because nobody would be able to criticise you any more.' He added: 'The second
option has some appeal as you could do really want [sic] you want without much
accountability.'
An
enthusiastic Andrew replied: 'I like your thinking!'
Four
months later, Buckingham Palace announced Andrew was stepping down as trade
envoy. His links to Epstein had been the latest, and most damaging, in a long
list of controversies that had dogged him since taking up the role in 2001.
Duke of York passed a Treasury document about
the Icelandic financial crisis to business tycoon whose family had just bought
part of a collapsed Icelandic bank
The
Duke of York passed a Treasury document about the Icelandic financial crisis to
Jonathan Rowland, whose family months earlier had bought part of a collapsed
Icelandic bank.
Leaked
emails reveal how Andrew requested a private briefing about the Labour
Government's bid to reclaim a £2.3 billion debt owed by Iceland following
online bank Icesave's collapse. The emails show that two hours after receiving
the document, which was drawn up by one of Chancellor Alistair Darling's key
officials, Andrew forwarded it to Mr Rowland – and suggested that he waited
before making his 'move'.
The
revelation shows how, thanks to their close relationship with Andrew, the
Rowlands were granted extraordinary insight into the thinking of the
Government's top decision-makers.
+14
·
The
implosion of Iceland's banking system in October 2008 hit 230,000 Britons who
had savings in Icesave, part of collapsed bank Landsbanki. Under a deal agreed
in 2009, Iceland was to pay the UK £2.3 billion by 2024. Icelanders opposed the
deal, rejecting it in a referendum in March 2010.
The
leaked emails reveal that a month before polling day, Amanda Thirsk, the Duke's
deputy private secretary, emailed a top Treasury official asking for an update.
'Basically,
the Duke of York met with the Prime Minister of Iceland at Davos and would very
much like to receive an update note on the latest position,' she wrote in an
email to Michael Ellam, the Treasury's director general of international
finance. Mr Ellam passed the request to Sophie Dean, Mr Darling's private
secretary.
The
Treasury sent the completed document on February 15 and Ms Thirsk forwarded it to
the Duke.
But the
leaked emails show that Andrew then sent the document to Jonathan Rowland that
afternoon, writing: 'Amanda is getting signals we should allow the democratic
process [to] happen before you make your move.' Nigel Mills, of the Public Accounts
Committee, said: 'The Treasury isn't there to provide private briefings. It is
an abuse of position.'
Epstein scandal engulfs Britain’s Royal family after BBC interview with
Prince Andrew
An attempt at damage limitation by the palace and the BBC has
backfired in spectacular fashion. Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview
with Emily Maitlis sought to refute allegations that his relations with
deceased billionaire sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein included
having paid sex with an underage girl. But his answers were met with widespread
derision and demands that the Duke of York go to the United States to testify
under oath.
Epstein was at the
centre of an elite social circle and procured women and underage girls for
sexual abuse by himself and others. The prince maintained his relations with
Epstein long after he was convicted for his crimes.
In 2008, Epstein served
13 months for
procuring an underage
girl for prostitution and
of soliciting a
prostitute. A three-year
investigation had
identified 36 girls, some as
young as 14 years old,
he had sexually
abused.
Epstein was arrested
again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges
for the sex trafficking
of minors in Florida and New York. He died
in his jail cell on
August 10, 2019. Ruled as a suicide, Epstein’s
lawyers and many others
have alleged that he was assassinated
to protect his friends
in high places—including the Duke of York.
Andrew’s friendship
with Epstein was close and even involved arranging for him to pay off the debts
of his former wife, Sarah, Duchess of York.
In January, Virginia
Roberts, now with the married name Giuffre, alleged in a court case that
Andrew, “a former prime minister” and lawyer Alan Dershowitz had sex with her
while she was a teenager. Epstein had paid her £10,000 to have sex with the
Duke on three occasions, including during a trip to London in 2001, when she
was 17, in New York and on a private Caribbean island.
Flight logs confirmed
that Andrew and Roberts/Giuffre were in all the places she alleges sex
happened. There is a photo of him with his arm around her waist taken at the
London flat of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s alleged “madam” and a friend of
Prince Andrew. A second girl, Joanna Sjoberg, alleges that Andrew touched her
breast while seated with Roberts in Epstein’s mansion.
In August 2019, the New
Republic magazine published an email exchange between Epstein
associate John Brockman and journalist Evgeny Morozov from September 2013, in
which Brockman mentions seeing a British man named “Andy” receiving a foot
massage from two young Russian women at Epstein’s New York mansion in 2010. He
later “realized that the recipient” of the foot massage “was His Royal
Highness, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.”
Pilot David Rodgers
claims the prince was a passenger on flights with the financier and
Roberts/Giuffre, including to the US Virgin Islands on April 11, 2001.
Last month the
right-wing website Project Veritas published a leaked video, revealing that ABC
News had suppressed reports of Epstein’s sex-trafficking for three years,
with Breaking News anchor and Good Morning America co-host
Amy Robach stating off-camera, “Then the Palace found out we had
[Roberts/Giuffre] whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a
million different ways. We were so worried that we wouldn’t be able to
interview Kate [Middleton] and Will [Prince William], that also quashed the
story.”
This was the background
to the November 16 Maitlis interview, recorded in Buckingham Palace November
14.
To give a flavour of
the painful episode, Andrew said he first met Epstein in 1999 through his
girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the deceased and disgraced media
tycoon Robert Maxwell. He had maintained relations only because he wanted to
learn more about the “international business world” in his capacity as a
special representative for international trade and investment. Epstein had
attended Princess Beatrice’s 18th birthday at Windsor Castle in July 2006, but
only as Maxwell’s “plus one.” Beatrice is Andrew’s daughter.
Andrew had broken contact
with Epstein after his initial conviction, until December 2010, when he visited
the financier just four months after he had completed his prison sentence. The
duke claimed he had only done so to (again) break off relations. He had
considered speaking to Epstein by telephone but decided to meet him
face-to-face “to show leadership.”
Asked why he had then
stayed at Epstein’s mansion and attended a dinner party, Andrew said, “It was a
convenient place to stay… with the benefit of all the hindsight that one can
have it was definitely the wrong thing to do but at the time I felt it was the
honourable and right thing to do.
“I admit fully my
judgement was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable,” he added.
Asking about the
alleged sexual encounter with Roberts/Giuffre, Maitlis said, “She says she met
you in 2001, she says she dined with you, danced with you at Tramp Nightclub in
London. She went on to have sex with you in a house in Belgravia belonging to
Ghislaine Maxwell, your friend. Your response?”
Andrew replied: “I have
no recollection of ever meeting this lady, none whatsoever.”
Roberts/Giuffre’s
accusations were “very specific,” Maitlis said, including that the prince had
been “profusely sweating.” He replied that “I didn’t sweat at the time because
I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the
Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me
to sweat.” He had only started to be able to sweat again “in the recent past.”
“Nobody can prove
whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that
photograph ever being taken,” he said. He had never been upstairs at Maxwell’s
Belgravia flat and “when I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie.” He was
shown with his hand on her waist, but “I am not one to, as it were, hug.”
Most importantly, the
day that his encounter with Roberts/Giuffre was meant to have taken place, March
10, 2001, he was “at home with the children.” He had taken Princess Beatrice to
a party at a Pizza Express restaurant in Woking at about 4 or 5 p.m., “And then
because the Duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one
is away the other one is there.”
“Going to Pizza Express
in Woking is an unusual thing for me to do,” he said. “I remember it weirdly
distinctly.”
He never suspected
Epstein’s criminal behaviour or saw anything unusual about the large number of
guests at what have been alleged to be orgies. “I live in an institution at
Buckingham Palace which has members of staff walking around all the time and I
don’t wish to appear grand but there were a lot of people who were walking
around Jeffrey Epstein’s house. As far as I was aware, they were staff.”
Andrew still did not
regret being friends with Epstein. Knowing Epstein had “some seriously
beneficial outcomes… The people that I met and the opportunities that I was
given to learn, either by him or because of him, were actually very useful.”
Maitlis closed the
interview by asking, “Would you be willing to testify or give a statement under
oath if you were asked?” He replied, “If push came to shove and the legal
advice was to do so, then I would be duty bound to do so.”
This may yet prove to
be the most damaging statement made by the prince. Lawyers representing 10 of
Epstein’s victims have demanded that he now speak to the FBI.
Gloria Allred,
representing five of Epstein’s victims, told the Guardian, “The
right and honourable action for Prince Andrew to take now is for him to
volunteer to be interviewed by the FBI and prosecutors for the southern
district of New York.”
Lisa Bloom, who
represents another five victims, said that some of the prince’s answers were
“simply not credible.”
Anna Rothwell, from
criminal law firm Corker Binning, said, “Prince Andrew is not entitled to any
form of immunity by virtue of his position as a member of the royal family. His
friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is under investigation
by the FBI and he is vulnerable to extradition.”
DOCUMENTARY:
ELIZABETH II
THE PARASITIC AND CORRUPT
HOUSE OF WINDSOR
AND THEIR PARTNERSHIP FOR
CASH WITH
GLOBAL MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS.
ABC anchor: British royals
‘threatened us a million different ways’ over Prince Andrew/Jeffrey Epstein
story
If royals threatened to withhold interviews with Prince
William and Kate Middleton, it wouldn’t be the first time they have been
accused of trying to protect Andrew in the Epstein scandal.
Prince Andrew, Duke of
York (Left). Billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (Right). Photos
by Getty Images and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
PUBLISHED: November 5, 2019 at 2:01 pm |
UPDATED: November 5, 2019 at 2:25 pm
ABC News is facing
difficult questions Tuesday over anchor Amy Robach’s hot mic complaints that
the network killed her investigative story about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged
trafficking of underaged “sex slaves” and his circle of rich and powerful
friends, including Prince Andrew.
But ABC is not the only
institution that’s been embarrassed by the leaked video clip of Robach, which
was released by the right-wing group Project Veritas.
The British royal family
will once again face questions and backlash over Andrew’s decade-long
association with Epstein. That’s because Robach said “the palace” —
presumably Buckingham Palace — put pressure on the network to suppress the story.
Robach said the story was
to include a 2015 interview with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of Epstein’s
alleged “sex slaves.” Giuffre, 35, has claimed in a lawsuit and in interviews
that she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times in 2001 when she was
17.
Robach said the palace
threatened to deny the network interviews with star royals, like Prince William
and Kate Middleton, if it aired her report.
“I’ve had this interview
with Virginia Roberts … we would not put it on the air,” Robach said on camera.
“First of all, I was told ‘Who’s Jeffrey Epstein?’ … Then the palace found out
that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a
million different ways.”
“We were so afraid we
wouldn’t be able to interview Kate and Will that this also quashed the story,”
Robach continued. She added that attorney Alan Dershowitz also pressured
ABC to kill the story.
On Tuesday, ABC scrambled to address Robach’s complaints. The
video was recorded in late August in the network’s Times Square studio, the Associated Press reported. Project Veritas said
the video came from “an ABC insider.”
In a statement to the
Associated Press, ABC said it did not air Giuffre’s interview three years ago
because it did not meet the network’s standards and because it lacked
sufficient corroborating evidence. But ABC insisted that the network “never
stopped investigating the story” and is preparing a two-hour documentary
and six-part podcast on Epstein to air in the new year.
Robach, who co-anchors
“20/20” and reports for “Good Morning America,” attempted to walk back from her
on-camera complaints. In a statement, she said she was “caught in a private
moment of frustration” because her story never aired. She agreed that the story
didn’t meet the network’s standards in 2015.
“The interview itself,
while I was disappointed it didn’t air, didn’t meet our standards,” Robach said
in her statement. “In the years since no one ever told me or the team to stop
reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, and we have continued to aggressively pursue this
important story.”
But in the video, Robach
expressed confidence that the network had corroborating evidence. She also was
visibly exasperated as she said, “I tried for three years to get (the
interview) on to no avail and now it’s coming out and it’s like these ‘new
revelations’ and I freaking had all of it.”
Robach is likely
referring to revelations that have emerged since Epstein’s Aug. 10 death in a
Manhattan jail where he was being held on new sex trafficking allegations.
The New York City Medical
Examiner has ruled Epstein’s death a suicide and has rejected a statement last
week by a former New York City medical examiner that findings in Epstein’s
autopsy were “more consistent” with homicide. In the video, Robach expressed
confidence that Epstein’s death was a murder, not a suicide.
The controversy over
Epstein’s death inspired the hashtags #EpsteinSuicideCoverUp and
#EpsteinCoverup, the latter of which Project Veritas promoted in its Tuesday
tweets about the Robach clip.
According to the
Associated Press, Project Veritas is known for its efforts to try and embarrass
mainstream media outlets, often sending undercover reporters to catch employees
making statements that display an anti-conservative bent.
But AP noted that it
needed no such help with the Robach video, which also raised comparisons to
reporter Ronan Farrow’s accusations that NBC News discouraged his
reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct. After Farrow
took his story to the New Yorker magazine, the Weinstein revelations helped
spark the #MeToo movement.
In an interview with NPR in August, Giuffre talked about her 2015 interview with ABC
and expressed confusion about it never aired. NPR reported that ABC never
explained its editorial reasons for not airing the interview.
“I viewed the ABC
interview as a potential game changer,” she said. “Appearing on ABC with its
wide viewership would have been the first time for me to speak out against the
government for basically looking the other way and to describe the anger and
betrayal victims felt.”
The release of the video clip comes as Andrew, 59, has faced
intensified scrutiny over his friendship with Epstein. David Boies, an attorney
representing Guiffre, told Vanity Fair in July that the royal family has actively worked to “discredit” her allegations
against Andrew, who is said to be the queen’s favorite son.
Vanity Fair also reported
that Andrew’s situation could have been a factor in the lenient plea deal and
13-month jail sentence Epstein received in 2008, when he originally was charged
with sexual abuse of minors.
There is speculation that
the deal, crafted by former federal prosecutor Alex Acosta (who resigned as
Donald Trump’s labor secretary) was at least in part designed to help protect
Andrew, Vanity Fair said. According to one theory, George W. Bush’s White
House directed Acosta not to prosecute Epstein to protect Andrew on behalf of
the British government, then the U.S.’s closest ally in the Iraq war.
Andrew and Buckingham
Palace have repeatedly denied he had sex with Guiffre or that he knew of Epstein’s
illegal activities.
Related
Articles
·
Buckingham palace also declined to
directly address claims Robach made in the video about the royal family putting
pressure on ABC. In a statement to People magazine, a spokesperson only said, “This is a matter for ABC.”
Buckingham Palace also has tried to downplay his friendship with
Epstein, which Andrew said ended in 2010 when he last visited Epstein at his
Manhattan mansion.
During that December 2010 visit, Andrew and Epstein were photographed walking together in Central
Park. Reports also say the prince enjoyed the financier’s lavish hospitality,
including an intimate dinner party thrown in his honor with such media
celebrities as ABC TV anchor George Stephanopoulos, as well as Katie
Couric and Charlie Rose. Comedian Chelsea Handler and
Documentary:
Prince Andrew Took Part in Jeffrey Epstein’s Orgy with Nine Underage Girls
Ian
Forsyth/Getty Images
21 Oct 201939
2:41
A documentary that aired in the United Kingdom on Monday includes
claims that Prince Andrew and the now-dead sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein took
part in an orgy with nine underage girls on Epstein’s private-island estate.
While the royal long dubbed “Randy
Andy” has strenuously denied being involved in his friend’s sex ring, the
salacious details already leaking from “The Prince and the Pedophile” have only
intensified the spotlight on the friendship that Andrew has admitted was a
“mistake and an error.”
The special by Channel 4’s
“Dispatches” is taking a deep dive into the pair’s close ties — including the
claims in 2015 court papers that they had group sex on Epstein’s so-called
“orgy island” of Little St James, according to the Times
of London.
“The third time I had sex with Andy
was in an orgy on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands. I was
around 18 at the time,” longtime accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre wrote in the
Florida court docs.
“Epstein, Andy, approximately eight
other young girls and I had sex together,” Giuffre said in the Post article. “The
other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t really
speak English.”
“Epstein laughed about the fact they
couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls to get
along with,” Giuffre said.
“‘Dispatches’ will prove Andrew met
Epstein at least 10 times during their 12-year friendship and the royal
sometimes stayed with him for several days, according to the Times,” the Post reported.
Epstein, who committed suicide last
summer in a Manhattan jail cell, saw Prince Andrew as his most valuable
“trophy” of the high-profile people he liked “collecting,” socialite Lady
Victoria Hervey said in the documentary
titled, “The Prince and the Pedophile.”
The Times is cited as the source in the Post report
on “Dispatches” obtaining Giuffre’s medical records that confirm her abuse
claims, including vaginal bleeding that lasted for weeks.
“Without going into the details of
the sexual activities I was forced to endure, there were times when I was
physically abused to the point that I remember fearfully thinking that I didn’t
know whether I was going to survive,” Giuffre wrote in a legal statement from
2015, according to the Times.
“At no stage during the limited time
I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort that
subsequently led to his arrest and conviction,” Prince Andrew has said.
“Buckingham Palace has also said
that ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically
untrue,’” the Post reported.
Jeffrey Epstein 'tried to
SUE Sarah Ferguson for calling him a paedophile' as she scrambled to cope with
the fallout over £15K gift from ex-husband Prince Andrew's former friend to
help clear her debts
·
The Duchess of York was threatened with legal action by Jeffrey Epstein
·
It came after she publicly called him a paedophile it has been
claimed
·
She made the statement in an interview after it emerged she had
accepted £15,000 from her ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal
debt
·
The
Duchess of York was threatened with legal action by disgraced financier Jeffrey
Epstein after she publicly called him a paedophile, it has been claimed.
Sarah
Ferguson made the statement in a 2011 interview after it emerged she had
accepted £15,000 from her ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal
debt.
Epstein
had given the money to one of Fergie's assistants at the request of Prince
Andrew.
But the
payment, which came after Epstein's release from prison over child sex
offences, caused a furore when it became public.
+2
·
Sarah Ferguson (pictured) made the statement
in a 2011 interview after it emerged she had accepted £15,000 from her
ex-husband's former friend to help clear a personal debt
The duchess subsequently accepted she had
made a 'gigantic error of judgement' and offered a 'heartfelt' apology.
Speaking to the Evening Standard she said: 'I
deeply regret Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me. I abhor
paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic
error of judgment on my behalf.
'I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever
I can I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey
Epstein ever again. What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.'
According to sources, Epstein – clearly in
denial about the scale of his crimes – was incensed by her suggestion he was a
paedophile.
The billionaire was convicted in 2008 of
procuring an under-age girl for prostitution and served 13 months in
jail.
The billionaire (pictured) was convicted in
2008 of procuring an under-age girl for prostitution and served 13 months in
jail
He was facing numerous further charges of
sex-trafficking earlier this year when he killed himself in his cell in New
York.
In 2011 it is understood Epstein hired an
unnamed firm of lawyers to sue the duchess, unless she retracted her media
statement.
At the same time he took on the services of
crisis management PR firm Sitrick & Co to deal with the scandal over his
friendship with Andrew, who was infamously photographed with the shamed
billionaire following his release from prison.
The firm, which confirms it provided
'consulting advice and public relations services concerning Epstein's
relationship with Prince Andrew', advised him how to handle the media storm.
As a result of the outcry, the Queen's son
was forced to publicly apologise and lost his job as a roving UK trade
ambassador. In 2014 Sitrick sued Epstein for £65,000 in unpaid fees relating to
their services.
In recently re-surfaced court papers, which
meticulously chart what the PR firm did on Epstein's behalf, it includes a
reference on March 15, 2011 to 'work on statement for Fergie'. Two days later,
on March 17, 2011, it adds 'revise suggested statement for Fergie'.
A
source close to the duchess said yesterday that the 'for Fergie' reference
relates to a statement drafted for Epstein which he was trying to get her to
release.
The
source added: 'Epstein tried to force the duchess to release a statement
retracting her suggestion that he was a paedophile which he had drafted by his
PR firm.
'Epstein
was very unpleasant and very aggressive. She stuck to her guns despite the
pressure being put on her and refused to comply.'
Eventually
Epstein halted his threat of legal action.
+2
·
Virginia Roberts photographed with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell
in early 2001. Virginia Roberts has accused Andrew of having sexual
relations with her when she was under-age, something Buckingham Palace and the
prince have strenuously denied
Virginia Roberts on Prince Andrew: He knows
what he did
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Since
his death, which led to all criminal charges being dropped, several of his
alleged victims are now suing his estate for damages.
They
include Virginia Roberts, who has also accused Andrew of having sexual
relations with her when she was under-age, something Buckingham Palace and the
prince have strenuously denied.
Andrew
has also tried to distance himself from Epstein's activities, saying in a
statement last month: 'At no stage during the limited time I spent with him did
I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led to
(Epstein's) arrest and conviction.'
'Sex slave'
Virginia Roberts 'went to hospital with internal bleeding following Jeffrey
Epstein orgies' - as she claims paedophile 'graded' her performance after she
slept with Prince Andrew
·
New documentary airs claims Virginia Roberts
had sex with Andrew after photo
·
She said in a court document that she felt
'graded' by Epstein after the meeting
·
Programme also unearthed medical records that
appear to support abuse claims
Medical
records show Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victim Virginia Roberts was admitted to
hospital in New York at the time she says she was suffering regular sexual
abuse.
The
evidence against Epstein - and details of his friendship with British royal
Prince Andrew - was set out in a Channel 4 documentary last night.
It
re-examined Virginia Roberts's court evidence from 2015 in which she told how
she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with his many friends.
As part
of that activity, she alleges, she had sex with Prince Andrew three times; the
first time in London in 2001, the second time in New York and the third in an
orgy in the US Virgin Islands.
According
to Channel 4's Dispatches programme, The Prince And the Paedophile, Mrs Roberts
later feared for her life due to the amount of sexual abuse she suffered at the
hands of Epstein and his associates.
The
programme obtained medical records from a New York hospital that shows that Ms
Roberts, suffered three weeks of vaginal bleeding from the 9th of July 2001.
+7
·
According to court documents, Ms Roberts
was brought to London by
Epstein in March 2001, when she was 17, and met the Prince at a house in
Belgravia.
Ms
Roberts said she was excited to meet a real Prince and wanted a picture taken
of her and Andrew together to send back to her family back in the United
States.
So she
handed her own camera to Epstein, who took the widely published photo of Andrew
with his hand around her.
She
alleges that moments after the photo was taken, she and the Prince went into a
bedroom and bathroom, where they had sex.
The
accuser claims she later felt like she was being 'graded' on her performance by
the disgraced paedophile financier, who told her: 'You did well, the Prince had
fun.'
The
programme cites a court deposition made in January 2015 as part of a defamation
case brought by Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
In it,
Ms Roberts claimed she had sex with Prince Andrew three times, the first at the
house in Belgravia, a second time at Epstein's house in Manhattan and the third
time in an 'orgy on Epstein's private island in the US Virgin Islands'.
Referring
to the third time, Ms Roberts said she was 18 at the time and that the Prince,
Epstein and 'approximately eight other young girls, and I had sex together'.
·
·
She
said Epstein had joked that the girls couldn't communicate well due to a language
barrier and that he said they were the 'easiest' girls to get along with.
Prince
Andrew has vehemently denied her claims and Ms Roberts' evidence was
thrown out by a court in May 2015.
Earlier
this year Buckingham Palace said: 'Any suggestion of impropriety with underage
minors is categorically untrue.' and 'It is emphatically denied that the Duke
of York had any form of sexual contact with Virginia Roberts. Any claim to the
contrary is false and without foundation.'
Prince
Andrew said of Epstein: 'At no stage during the limited time I spent with him
did I see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort that subsequently led
to his arrest and conviction.'
The
documentary also unearthed claims that Epstein had '13 contact numbers for
Prince Andrew' in an address book.
Discovered
at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, the address book was found to have
contact details for several of the Duke of York's residences, including
Buckingham Palace.
British
socialite Lady Victoria Hervey told Dispatches that Epstein, who killed himself
in prison, was 'addicted to collecting people' such as the royal.
'Andrew
was kind of like newly single... And he meets this charismatic man – Jeffrey
collected people. He was almost addicted to collecting important people.
'He
liked to impress people. So, the British Royal Family, can you imagine? This
was his biggest kind of trophy.'
+7
·
Andrew says he first met Epstein in 1999, around the same time he had a
brief romance with Lady Victoria.
An unnamed friend of Epstein told the programme the prince's friendship
with the American after his 2009 conviction for having sex with underage girls
was 'more than a lack of judgment' and showed hubris.
The friend added: 'You begin to believe you can't be damaged. You're
beyond being damaged. The little people out there can't touch you.'
He said he warned Epstein against having the prince visit him in New
York in 2010 following his spell in prison for sex offences. He claims he told
Epstein: 'They will attack Prince Andrew for being your friend, and each of you
will lose... And I remember him saying: 'No one will know'.'
The warnings proved correct and the pair were photographed together in
Central Park. Andrew admits he knew Epstein for 12 years but has strongly
denied any inappropriate behaviour with underage girls.
Dai Davis, who was in charge of royal protection for the Metropolitan
Police in the 1990s, said he was 'mystified' as to why Scotland Yard did not
investigate.
Epstein hanged himself in August in prison in New York while awaiting
trial for sex trafficking charges.
+7
·
Documentary:
Prince Andrew Took Part in Jeffrey Epstein’s Orgy with Nine Underage Girls
Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
21 Oct 2019418
2:41
A documentary that aired in the United Kingdom on Monday
includes claims that Prince Andrew and the now-dead sexual predator Jeffrey
Epstein took part in an orgy with nine underage girls on Epstein’s
private-island estate.
While
the royal long dubbed “Randy Andy” has strenuously denied being involved in his
friend’s sex ring, the salacious details already leaking from “The Prince and
the Pedophile” have only intensified the spotlight on the friendship that
Andrew has admitted was a “mistake and an
error.”
The
special by Channel 4’s “Dispatches” is taking a deep dive into the pair’s close
ties — including the claims in 2015 court papers that they had group sex on
Epstein’s so-called “orgy island” of Little St James, according to the Times of London.
“The third time I had sex
with Andy was in an orgy on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands.
I was around 18 at the time,” longtime accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre wrote
in the Florida court docs.
“Epstein,
Andy, approximately eight other young girls and I had sex together,” Giuffre
said in the Post article.
“The other girls all seemed and appeared to be under the age of 18 and didn’t
really speak English.”
“Epstein laughed about the
fact they couldn’t really communicate, saying that they are the ‘easiest’ girls
to get along with,” Giuffre said.
“‘Dispatches’
will prove Andrew met Epstein at least 10 times during their 12-year friendship
and the royal sometimes stayed with him for several days, according to
the Times,”
the Post reported.
Epstein,
who committed suicide last summer in a Manhattan jail cell, saw Prince Andrew
as his most valuable “trophy” of the high-profile people he liked “collecting,”
socialite Lady Victoria Hervey said in the documentary
titled, “The Prince and the Pedophile.”
The Times is cited as the
source in the Post report
on “Dispatches” obtaining
Giuffre’s medical records that confirm her abuse claims, including vaginal
bleeding that lasted for weeks.
“Without
going into the details of the sexual activities I was forced to endure, there
were times when I was physically abused to the point that I remember fearfully
thinking that I didn’t know whether I was going to survive,” Giuffre wrote in a
legal statement from 2015, according to the Times.
“At no stage during the limited
time I spent with him did I see, witness or suspect any behavior of the sort
that subsequently led to his arrest and conviction,” Prince Andrew has said.
“Buckingham
Palace has also said that ‘any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors
is categorically untrue,’” the Post reported.
Report:
UK Security Fears Russia May Link Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein Abuse
22 Sep 2019111
2:48
The UK’s
main external security unit MI6 fears Russia may possess information
potentially linking Prince Andrew to the Jeffrey Epstein sexual abuse scandal,
says a security source.
The Secret
Intelligence Service is apparently worried a disgruntled ex-cop who fled the
U.S. and was granted political asylum in Russia might have “compromising
material on the royal”, the Times of
London reports, consisting of
direct evidence of the prince’s alleged 2001 tryst with then-17-year-old
Epstein “slave” Virginia Giuffre.
Giuffre
claimed she was ordered to have sex to with Andrew and many of Epstein’s
powerful friends as a teenager — claims both Andrew and Buckingham Palace have
profusely denied.
Epstein was found dead from suicide by hanging in a Manhattan jail cell on
August 10, 2019, after he was charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking.
The Times’ article draws
on the “bizarre case” of John Mark Dougan, a Marine Corps veteran and former
Palm Beach sheriff’s deputy who fled to Moscow in 2016 following an FBI raid on
his home in Florida.
Dougan, who
resigned from the force in 2009, angered police chiefs in America after setting
up whistleblower websites throughout the country for “good cops to spill their
secrets without fear or retribution”, according to his book, BadVolf.
The Times reports MI6 is
worried about how much Dougan knows of the original police investigation into
the billionaire pedo’s actitivites when based in Florida, and what information
the ex-cop might have shared with Russia.
The unnamed source told the paper: “His knowledge of the Epstein
case would have been of great interest to Russian intelligence.”
When
contacted in Moscow last week, Dougan agreed that details about Epstein might be “incredibly
valuable” for any intelligence agency and might give “leverage” over “a guy
like Prince Andrew”.
Dougan
claimed on Facebook in July he still possessed confidential documents no one
had seen, the Times said.
Prince Andrew’s name has been linked many times to the disgraced
tycoon.
As Breitbart
New reported, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son flew on Epstein’s private
jet on at least two occasions with the disgraced multi-millionaire’s alleged
sex slave 17-year-old Virginia Roberts on board, a pilot has claimed.
Pilot David
Rodgers, 66, said in a deposition that
Prince Andrew and other VIP guests— including former President Bill Clinton,
disgraced actor Kevin Spacey, and model Naomi Campbell— also flew on the
private jet a number of times.
It is also claimed claimed that Prince Andrew was on the
maiden flight of Epstein’s “Lolita Express”— a Boeing 727-200 passenger jet
allegedly used to traffic underage girls to his private island in the Caribbean
— on August 7, 2001.
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