[ad_1]
Prince Andrew, who is facing a civil case in the United States for sexual assault, lost his honorary positions at the head of military regiments and charities on Thursday and will no longer use the title of Royal Highness.
“With the approval and agreement of the queen” Isabel II, his mother, “the military affiliations and royal patronages of the Duke of York were returned,” announced the Buckingham Palace in a short statement.
Hours earlier, more than 150 veterans of the British army had asked the monarch to withdraw his military titles from this former helicopter pilot, distinguished as a hero of the Falklands war (1982) in which he participated at the age of 22.
They accused him of failing to fulfill the obligations of “probity, honesty and honorable behavior” of the British military.
In addition, you will no longer use the title of Royal Highness, said a source from the royal house.
“The Duke of York will continue not to perform any public function and will defend himself in this case as a private citizen,” the palace statement added.
A New York judge on Wednesday rejected a petition filed by the prince’s lawyers to dismiss the sexual assault complaint filed against him by Virginia Guiffre, an American who accuses him of abusing her in 2001, when she was 17 years old.
Guiffre is one of the victims of the sex crimes of the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of pedophilia by a Florida court and who committed suicide in a New York jail in August 2019, where he awaited a new trial for trafficking and abuse of minors.
The friendship of Andrés, 61, with the American, who defended in a highly controversial interview with the BBC in November 2019 caused a major scandal that forced him to withdraw from public life.
The case of Andrés, considered by all as the “favorite son” of Isabel II, It is one of the multiple scandals that damage the image of the British monarchy with which the sovereign has had to deal recently at 95 years of age.
Following the decision of the US justice system, the Duke, who firmly denies the accusations, will have to face a civil trial, in which he would respond in principle by means of a statement recorded in the United Kingdom. Unless he recurs and is successful or the two parties reach an economic agreement, the hearings could be held in the fall.
“Elusive rabbit”
On Wednesday, one of Giuffre’s lawyers, David Boies, told the BBC that his client was not ruling out a deal, but that the money would not be enough.
“It is very important” for her “that this case be resolved in a way that gives recognition to both her and the other victims,” he stressed.
Going to trial, risking revelations and defeat or reaching an agreement that sounds like a confession, for Prince Andrew “there is no good solution,” says Anna Whitelock, a historian specializing in the monarchy at the City University of London.
And a financial deal would raise questions about “where the money came from,” Whitelock told AFP.
According to the British press, the prince has recently settled a dispute over a debt of 6.6 million pounds (9 million dollars, 8 million euros), which would now allow him to sell a chalet in Switzerland that he bought in 2014 for a sum that would amount to to 18 million pounds.
In recent months, Prince Andrew has “given the impression of being an elusive rabbit” or of “hiding behind his mother’s skirts on his Scottish estate in Balmoral so as not to receive the court documents sent to him,” the former columnist mocked. real Jennie Bond on Sky News.
“But what a shame for a 95-year-old woman to have to question her 61-year-old son about allegations of sexual misconduct,” he added, considering that “to back it up” before “he needed to know the truth.”
kg
[ad_2]