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A US congressional panel investigating pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein has formally written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, previously Britain’s Prince Andrew, demanding that he submit to a deposition as part of its inquiry into Epstein’s illegal activities.

In a communication made public on Thursday, a lawmaker, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, asked that King Charles III’s sibling help with its investigation.

The formal request to provide testimony arrives a week after Mountbatten Windsor was lost his HRH style and opted to vacate his leased home in Windsor.

Documents and Claims

Mountbatten Windsor’s name features in documents and travel logs secured from Epstein’s estate and publicly released by the committee. He has also been alleged by one of Epstein’s survivors, the late Virginia Giuffre, of misconduct.

“The panel will investigate allegations of abuse by Mountbatten Windsor, and will demand information on Epstein’s operations, circle, and associates based on the men’s long-term and well-documented friendship,” the committee said in a announcement.

It demanded information from Mountbatten Windsor on details of his friendship with Epstein, who took his own life in a New York detention facility in 2019. Andrew has consistently vehemently rejected any impropriety.

Substance of the Letter

“It has been widely reported that your association with Mr Epstein started in 1999 and that you remained close through and after his 2008 guilty verdict for soliciting minors for sex work,” the letter said.

It added: “It has also been reported that you went with Epstein to his New York property, the Queen’s residence at Balmoral, and to Mr Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, where you have been alleged of assaulting young girls. This close relationship with Mr Epstein, combined with the newly disclosed 2011 digital communication in which you wrote to him ‘we are in this together’, further confirms our suspicion that you may have important details about the wrongdoings committed by Mr Epstein and his partners in crime.”

A announcement regarding the letter said it was endorsed by 13 other Democrats on the committee and asks a reply by 20 November.

Past Remarks and Assistance

The letter arrives a week after another Democrat on the committee stated: “Andrew should be asked to appear before the committee. The people has the right to know who was abusing women and young girls alongside Epstein.”

However, the representative does not have the power to subpoena the duke and Congress itself cannot oblige statements from a foreign national.

In 2020, US authorities said that Mountbatten Windsor did not reply to US demands for an interview. The then US attorney for the southern district of New York said that authorities and the FBI had approached Andrew’s lawyers to check on his earlier promise that he was “prepared to help any relevant law enforcement agency”.

“It’s reasonable for people to know whether Prince Andrew has fulfilled with that public commitment,” the attorney said, adding that to date he had “provided absolutely no cooperation”.

Calls for Justice

The congressman said in a announcement that “wealthy and powerful men have escaped the law for far too long. Now, one-time Prince Andrew has the opportunity to come clean and deliver redress for the survivors. Oversight Democrats will not halt advocating for answerability and transparency for those affected of Epstein and his group of co-conspirators.”

Another supporter, a Virginia Democrat, said that after hearing accounts to the committee from Epstein’s victims, as well as public reporting of leaked documents, “it is essential that Andrew works together with the current inquiry. If he is blameless, then he can prove his innocence.”

The lawmaker continued: “And if not, our probe will reveal that, and the survivors will receive much-delayed redress. The monarchy’s actions taking away Andrew of his honors show there is more to this situation.”

The letter came on the same day the British king publicly stripped Mountbatten Windsor of his HRH style. Charles III formally made the alteration – which had been announced a week ago – by issuing a “royal decree” which the monarch’s office made public in the Gazette, the UK’s government journal.