Names and faces
Britain’s Prince Andrew has provided “zero cooperation” to the American investigators who want to interview him as part of their sex trafficking probe into Jeffrey Epstein, a U.S. prosecutor said Monday. Speaking at a news conference outside Epstein’s New York mansion, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said prosecutors and the FBI had contacted Andrew’s lawyers and asked to interview him. “To date, Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation,” said Berman. Buckingham Palace declined to comment. Andrew announced last year that he was withdrawing from his royal duties amid renewed public attention on a woman’s claim that she had several sexual encounters with the prince at Epstein’s behest, starting when she was 17. Virginia Roberts Giuffre says that after meeting Epstein in Florida in 2000, the millionaire flew her around the world and pressured her into having sex with numerous older men, including Andrew, two senior U.S. politicians, a noted academic, wealthy financiers and the attorney Alan Dershowitz, who is now part of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team. All of those men have denied the allegations.
After years of court battles, Belgium’s former King Albert II is no longer fighting a claim that he is the father of artist and sculptor Delphine Boel, bringing a major breakthrough in the decades-old royal paternity scandal. A statement delivered by his lawyers to Belgian media on Monday said that “scientific conclusions indicate that he is the biological father of Mrs. Delphine Boel.” It came after Albert II last year finally agreed to a DNA test. King Albert II, who abdicated in 2013 for health reasons, said Monday that even if there were judicial arguments left to pursue, legal paternity is not necessarily equal to biological fatherhood. He added that even if the case could be continued on procedural grounds, he decided not to do so.” Boel’s lawyer, Marc Uyttendaele, said on RTBF network that “her reaction was one of relief, emotion but also shows a wound that will not heal.” Rumors about Albert and Boel’s mother, the aristocratic wife of a well-heeled industrialist, had been around for years. But the news that the king may have had a child with her broke into the open when a biography of Albert’s wife, Queen Paola, was published in 1999. Six years ago, Boel opened court proceedings to prove that Albert is her father.