Prince Andrew won't be extradited over Epstein investigation, says US attorney general
'I don't think it's a question of handing him over,' William Barr says. 'I think it's just a question of having him provide some evidence'
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Your support makes all the difference.Prince Andrew won't be extradited to the US for questioning over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the country’s attorney general has said.
William Barr confirmed there were no plans to make a formal request for the Duke of York to be handed over to authorities there during an interview on Monday.
"I don't think it's a question of handing him over,” he told Fox News. “I think it's just a question of having him provide some evidence."
The intervention came on a day when lawyers for the Queen’s second son released a statement suggesting he was eager to cooperate with authorities investigating Epstein – which was immediately rebutted as “false” by the attorney leading the inquiry.
The statement from the royal’s legal team said Andrew had “on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the Department of Justice”.
It added: "Unfortunately, the DOJ has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the duke has offered zero co-operation. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered."
But in a furious and almost immediate response Geoffrey Berman, the attorney in charge of the ongoing inquiry, dismissed the statement as effectively inaccurate.
He said: "Prince Andrew yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate with an ongoing federal criminal investigation into sex trafficking and related offences committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, even though the prince has not given an interview to federal authorities, has repeatedly declined our request to schedule such an interview and nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally – through the very same counsel who issued today's release – that he would not come in for such an interview.
"If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about co-operating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open and we await word of when we should expect him."
The victims' lawyer Gloria Allred said on Tuesday her clients were "in pain" and were keen to discover "the truth."
She told BBC Breakfast: "They just want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about who may have conspired with Prince Andrew to sex traffic them and other underage girls.
"That's all they're asking... Let him step up to the bar of justice, take the oath and just tell the truth.
"It's just as simple as that. Trying to delay, trying to deny, trying to evade the questions and attack the questioners is really not helpful at all.
"You know, we have an expression in the law – justice delayed is justice denied. That's never more true than it has been with Prince Andrew."
The duke's public life has been left in tatters over his controversial friendship with the financier and sex offender Epstein – who himself died in jail last August while awaiting trial on trafficking charges.
The royal insists he never saw anything suspicious during their friendship of many years but one woman, Virginia Giuffre, has said she slept with the prince on the orders of Epstein when she was just 17.
The duke stepped back from royal duties last year after a disastrous Newsnight interview about his involvement with Epstein which saw him accused of showing little empathy for the financier's victims.
Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.