Royal News Blog

Note: This article is from The Guardian.

This article titled “Prince Andrew’s link to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein taints royalty in US” was written by Paul Harris in New York, for The Observer on Sunday 13th March 2011 00.06 UTC

The British press has a new admirer. Spencer Kuvin, a Florida lawyer who has fought several cases for young women alleging sexual abuse by the disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, is delighted – and relieved – that newspapers are now examining Prince Andrew’s relationship with the convicted paedophile.

“I am glad the British press has picked this up,” Kuvin told the Observer. “The British people have a right to ask why he [Prince Andrew] is hanging out with a convicted paedophile. I think that is a very good question to be asking.”

Kuvin has been asking it for a while. He believes Epstein has in effect got away with most of his crimes because of his wealth and his connections with the powerful and well-connected across America and the world.

“He’s fine. He has a great life,” he said of the man who spent less than two years in jail after pleading guilty to child sex offences.

That is probably true. Florida law allows anyone to find out the whereabouts of a convicted sex offender via an online database. According to the website last week Epstein’s location was St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. He owns a private island there: one that Prince Andrew has visited. “Epstein is probably sunning himself on a beach right now,” Kuvin said.

The same cannot be said for the Duke of York. This weekend, as he considers the parlous state of his international reputation, he is likely to feeling a lot less comfortable than his one-time party friend.

It was not meant to be this way for the prince. America is supposed to be a happy hunting ground for the British royal family. It is a place where the people see them as exotic celebrities to be feted, admired and placed alongside the homegrown “royalty” of Hollywood.

American citizens and politicians – freed from the burdens of paying for a civil list of their own – can indulge in the sort of innocent worship of monarchical “glam” that typified Britain in the 1950s.

So recent headlines in the US media have come as a bit of a shock. “Seen around town: Prince Andrew and Perv Billionaire,” blared the New York Post. “Duchess of York apologises for accepting money from sex offender,” read the New York Daily News. So much for the eager anticipation of a slew of good publicity around the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

It was not just the American tabloids. Even the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy piece last week prompted by the fallout from Prince Andrew’s long friendship and close relations with Epstein, 58, who served 18 months for sexual offences involving underage girls. No wonder New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser weighed in on the controversy about what she called a “bromance” between the pair. Prince Andrew, she concluded, was an “idiot prince”.

It is hard to fathom the depths of the PR disaster that continues to unfold around the prince because of his links to Epstein. After he was snapped walking side by side with Epstein through Central Park last December, Andrew has seen his entire globetrotting existence as a trade ambassador put under the microscope. It has not borne up well.

Suddenly his life and times partying with Epstein have become public knowledge, complete with sordid details of being surrounded by young women and being present at topless pool parties. A woman, Virginia Roberts, who provided sexual services for Epstein and his rich friends while underage, saw the photograph and decided to speak about her experiences. Another picture rapidly surfaced, of Roberts side by side with the prince. To cap it all, Andrew’s links to a whole series of unpleasant developing world autocrats and dictators have also come under fresh examination.

None of it has made a pretty picture and the royals – perhaps typically – have been slow to react in any meaningful way. First, the problem was ignored. Then it was dismissed. Only now, belatedly, have they begun to address it with reports that the Queen has talked to Andrew privately. It feels too little, too late.

Like many Europeans, perhaps, Andrew enjoyed the US because of the freedom and opportunities it afforded. The social scene in glittering hotspots like Manhattan and Florida’s Palm Beach allowed him to free himself from the stuffy world of aristocratic Britain. He was courted and won over by the rich elite and he repaid the compliment.

No one knows why the prince carried on such a close friendship with a figure like Epstein for so long or why he refused to end it after Epstein went to jail. The facts alone should have been a warning sign. Epstein, a working class Brooklyn boy who became a super-wealthy money manager, was one of the world’s most renowned playboys. But in 2008, after a three-year investigation into the young women he and his entourage procured, he wound up in jail. Nor was it an isolated incident. Epstein’s case was ended via a plea bargain where he admitted guilt on a charge of felony solicitation of prostitution involving a minor. Yet as many as 40 young women had made allegations against him and, unusually, his plea deal allowed other accusers to sue him in civil court. So far at least 17 of them have settled civil cases against him.

The American drama is far from over for the prince. Instead the legal wranglings around Epstein and his exotic lifestyle threaten to drag the royal family right into the US court system.

Epstein is now suing Brad Edwards, a lawyer for some of the girls from the original investigation. In turn Edwards is counter-suing Epstein, alleging that the billionaire is using his vast resources to pursue expensive legal cases and thus intimidate other victims and their legal representatives. Either way, Andrew could be pulled into the mess as a witness. Edwards’s lawyer, Jack Scarola, said last week that his team intended to try and get a statement from the prince about what he may or may not have seen while attending parties with Epstein.

Though the prince is likely to claim diplomatic immunity, that step will not keep his name out of the court papers or the headlines: it will just keep his presence out of the courtroom.

The same thing goes for previous cases involving Epstein. They amount to a potential source of PR torture for the royal family as media scrutiny continues. Recently released documents from a different case showed that two of Epstein’s closest confidantes – his PA Sarah Ellen and an on-off girlfriend, Nadia Marcinkova – were repeatedly questioned by Kuvin about whether the prince had been involved in sexual acts with any of Epstein’s entourage of young women. Both Ellen and Marcinkova declined to answer the questions and instead took the Fifth Amendment, which allows their legal silence.

Of course, there is no evidence or suggestion that Andrew was involved. But in PR terms there does not need to be. There is even a small chance that the FBI will use some of the new revelations emerging in the media to reopen the criminal case against Epstein, though legal experts think it unlikely.

Even the hint of a possibilty of a federal probe is another reason for the headline writers to start sharpening their pens for those with links to Epstein.

Prince Andrew is not the only one. Epstein has partied in New York with numerous people since he left jail, including big names and celebrities like Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulos and Woody Allen. Perhaps they too should have known better.

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Note: This article is from The Guardian.

This article titled “Prince Andrew row intensifies as he lobbies for Azerbaijan” was written by Robert Booth, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th March 2011 21.05 UTC

On Monday, as a storm of bad publicity raged around him, Prince Andrew lobbied an MP to help boost British business with Azerbaijan, the autocracy accused of torturing protesters, it has emerged.

Despite growing concern over his willingness to establish business links with foreign dictatorships from the Middle East to central Asia, the Duke of York met Mark Field, Tory MP for Cities of London and Westminster and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Azerbaijan, at Buckingham Palace and asked for support in parliament and Whitehall for British investment in Azerbaijan.

“He wants to raise the profile of the all-party group and wants us to make the case in parliament and to the business secretary of the business opportunities out in Azerbaijan,” Field told the Guardian yesterday. “He feels it is a cinderella country that has tremendous opportunities.”

The duke, who acts as the UK’s special representative for international trade and investment, is understood to be planning a trade visit to Azerbaijan in June, his eighth since 2005. He is often described as “the dear guest” by local media. He has dined several times with President Ilham Aliyev, including in June 2009 (pictured), and on his last visit in November, came just weeks after international criticism of the conduct of the country’s parliamentary elections.

Amnesty International has called on the Aliyev regime to stop torturing activists demanding reform.

Andrew has been to the former Soviet republic three times since 2008 in a private capacity. Otherwise he has travelled there on behalf of UK Trade and Investment.

Last year, a coalition of human rights groups said Aliyev had achieved stability only by “a total crackdown on the political opposition, stifling the independent and opposition media, and curbing fundamental freedoms”.

Field said: “One of the things [Andrew] talked about was his feeling that a place like Azerbaijan is somewhere of great opportunity, and the more British politicians and businesses engage themselves with their counterparts in Azerbaijan, the greater the material benefits.”

The duke’s apparent lobbying of MPs and peers through Field comes despite calls for him to stand down as UK trade envoy over his links to the billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and his decision to host Sakher el-Materi, the son-in-law of the deposed Tunisian leader, to lunch at Buckingham Palace just three months before the north African regime was toppled.

His ties to Epstein were again in the spotlight last night as the Daily Telegraph reported that the American landed his private jet at an RAF fighter base during a visit to Sandringham.

Citing flight logs, it said Epstein’s Gulfstream flew into RAF Marham with him and the Duke’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell on board, before they enjoyed the Duke’s hospitality at the Queen’s Norfolk estate.

More broadly, the duke’s lobbying for Azerbaijan will raise fresh questions about whether he is using his role to act in the interests of British business or in the interests of the foreign leaders the government pays hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for him to visit.

Field said he did not think that Prince Andrew was acting in the interests of the Azerbaijan government during the Monday meeting. He saw it as the prince gathering business opportunities for British companies. Andrew was “relaxed and in good humour”, he added, despite discussing “some of the headlines of the day”.

Buckingham Palace denied the duke was in any way acting in the interests of the Azerbaijan regime. “The job works in two ways,” said Andrew’s spokesman. “He tries to identify opportunities for British businesses in overseas markets. Equally, it is to sometimes attract inward investment into the UK.

“It is entirely appropriate that the Duke of York should try and identify business opportunities for British businesses in Azerbaijan, a country in which the British government operates.”

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This article titled “Prince Andrew’s foreign trips as UK trade envoy supported at top level” was written by Robert Booth, for The Guardian on Wednesday 9th March 2011 21.17 UTC

The Duke of York is not alone in deciding it is a good thing to glad-hand foreign dictators, sheikhs and princes on behalf of British companies. His official trips abroad as a UK trade envoy are planned and sanctioned by powerful figures from the British establishment.

Prince Andrew’s programme of overseas visits – in which he travelled to Davos, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Dubai and China last year – is determined by the Foreign Office and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), the government’s export promotion arm, and approved by the royal visits committee.

This cabinet committee meets every six months and is chaired by Simon Fraser, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, and includes the private secretaries to the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, a representative from 10 Downing Street, the chief executive of UKTI and the director of protocol at the Foreign Office.

When a trade visit is approved by this committee it is, in effect, backed by the government at the highest level. Prince Andrew also has regular contact with British ambassadors and senior mandarins.

Only last week, after calls for his resignation from the role of UK trade envoy over his friendship with the American billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he was briefed at the Cabinet Office and held talks with Jon Cunliffe, David Cameron’s adviser on international economic affairs and Europe.

Cameron and George Osborne, the chancellor, have offered the prince their full support this week.

A spokesman for Buckingham Palace said the ideas for places to visit came from a wide range of sources, including “the government, lords lieutenant [the Queen's representatives in the counties], direct from business, and ideas generated in the office as follow-up to the duke’s activities – for example, visiting significant inward investors in the UK from key markets”. All requests are reviewed in the Duke of York’s quarterly programme planning meeting, which takes place every three months.

In some cases, the duke acts on his own behalf, still as the government’s special representative for international trade and investment, but not at the behest of UKTI or the Foreign Office. It is sometimes a subtle difference, but in recent days it has allowed the government to distance itself from some of his more controversial activities.

One such case was his decision to invite Sakher el-Materi, a son-in-law of the deposed Tunisian dictator, to lunch at Buckingham Palace in October. Materi, a businessman, has since fled Tunisia and is under investigation for money laundering. The duke had recently been to Tunisia, and Buckingham Palace said this had prompted the idea of hosting Materi. UKTI then offered a list of possible attenders from major UK-based firms. When confronted with the allegations now ranged against Materi following the January revolution in Tunisia, a spokesman for UKTI was able to say the lunch was not a UKTI event.

Neither is it simple who funds the prince. The cost of a two-day trip to Saudi Arabia in September, still in his role as the government’s trade ambassador, was not financed by UKTI, with accommodation provided by the duke’s Saudi hosts. UKTI only paid £400 in communication costs. However, his charter flight from Farnborough to Jeddah and back was billed to the taxpayer at £28,767, paid out of the royal travel grant. The blurring of the finance for the trip led to concerns that his Saudi hosts may have expected something in return for their hospitality, and that could have jeopardised his independence, although this was strongly denied by a spokesman for the duke.

In other cases he makes private trips abroad. For example, he made three trips to Azerbaijan – in 2008, 2009 and 2010 – that were not sponsored by the government, and at least one private trip to Kazakhstan, where he has also made numerous trade visits sponsored by the UK government. This has further blurred the boundary between the duke’s personal interests and his public role as trade ambassador. The palace has always strenuously denied that there is any overlap or conflict of interest.

Prince’s back office
Experts behind the scenes

The back-office support Prince Andrew receives for his UK trade promotion duties includes experts seconded from both the private and public sector.

Several are from influential financial and management consultancy firms. Their salaries are understood to be paid by their companies; the cost does not fall on the royal household.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “Currently, there is one secondee from KPMG [the auditing and tax advisory business], one from the military as equerry and, until recently, one from LEK [a global strategy consulting firm].”

The latter adviser, who left in the past two weeks, was Amit Patel, a former surgeon who is understood to have returned to LEK. He was styled as a “special adviser to HRH the Duke of York”.

Prince Andrew has met LEK officials recently. “The Duke has known LEK as a major UK advisory firm for some time,” the palace spokesman said.

“HRH visited LEK to understand more about their business. As a follow-up to that visit, LEK attended a meeting at Buckingham Palace to discuss ideas to enhance future visit programmes,” the palace spokesman said. “It is important to note that LEK do not get preferential treatment in any of the duke’s activities.”

Owen Bowcott

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