London, Jan 28 (IANS) The UK’s Prince Andrew has ignored requests from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for an interview about his friendship with late American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a top US prosecutor said.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announced on Monday that there had been “zero cooperation” to repeated requests for help from the Duke of York, the London-based Metro newspaper said in a report.
Berman made the announcement on the steps of Epstein’s huge Manhattan mansion, which Andrew infamously visited in 2010, two years after the billionaire financier was convicted of a child sex crime.
Prince Andrew has denied any wrongdoing and last year, he had indicated his willingness to cooperate with investigators.
The Buckingham Palace is yet to comment on Berman’s claims.
Epstein was found dead in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial last August. His death was subsequently ruled a suicide.
Andrew, Queen Elizabeth II’s second-youngest son, was forced to to step back from royal life last December after a BBC interview about his friendship with Epstein.
One of Epstein’s main accusers, Virginia Roberts Guiffre, has claimed that the late financier and his fixer Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked her to London in 2001 to sleep with Prince Andrew when she was 17, the Metro report said.
Prince Andrew has vehemently denied those claims, with Maxwell also rejecting all wrongdoing.
Epstein was previously convicted of a child sex offence in 2008, and was handed a 13 month sentence which allowed him to leave prison.
–IANS
ksk/