(Belga) Prince Andrew of Great Britain on Friday asked American justice to reject the complaint of an American who accuses him of sexual assault when she was a minor, according to a court document consulted by AFP.
In it, the Duke of York, 61, “respectfully requests the dismissal of the complaint filed by Virginia Giuffre,” write his lawyers. This American, who had already publicly accused the second son of Queen Elizabeth, had filed a complaint in August 2021 in federal court in Manhattan. The case is particularly embarrassing for the British royal family because the sulphurous financier Jeffrey Epstein is associated with it. In her complaint, Virginia Giuffre accuses Prince Andrew of being “one of the powerful men” to whom she was “handed over for sexual purposes” when she was, she claims, the victim between 2000 and 2002 , from the age of 16, of the vast sex trafficking for which Jeffrey Epstein was charged and imprisoned, before killing himself in a Manhattan prison in the summer of 2019. Lawyers for Andrew, who has always denied the charges, ask the Manhattan court that the complaint be dismissed because, according to them, it does not state “a claim capable of giving rise to reparation”. Alternatively, they ask the court to demand that the complainant “provide a more definitive version of her allegations”. Finally, they ask the court to hold an “oral debate” on these questions. Since the filing of the complaint, the Duke of York had contested his notification, before finally acknowledging it. Prince Andrew is accused of having “sexually assaulted” Mrs. Giuffre, then a minor, on three occasions: in London at Ghislaine Maxwell, a relative of Jeffrey Epstein, and in the properties of the American financier in New York and in the Virgin Islands. Despite his denials, his association with the American businessman had plunged him into turmoil and forced him to retire from public life. (Belga)
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