Former UK ambassador to US Peter Mandelson arrested amid Epstein probe
By Peter Wilkinson, Caitlin Danaher, CNN
London (CNN) — The former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson was arrested Monday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.
Mandelson, a veteran Labour Party politician, has been accused of passing market-sensitive information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein when he was business secretary in the UK government.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, February 23, and has been taken to a London police station for interview.”
“This follows search warrants at two addresses in the Wiltshire and Camden areas.”
The revelations from the latest tranche of Epstein files led to Mandelson’s resignation from the Labour Party earlier this month, having quit the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain’s parliament, the same week.
The former politician was fired from his ambassador role in September by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer following a previous release of Epstein files which showed that he had called the financier “my best pal” in a handwritten note for his 50th birthday.
The unfolding Mandelson scandal threatened to topple Starmer’s premiership, with the bitter fallout leading to the resignations of key advisers and growing calls from senior Labour Party figures for the British prime minister to step down.
The British leader faced questions over how much he knew about the extent of Mandelson’s close relationship with the late sex offender when he appointed him as ambassador.
Mandelson has not publicly commented on these latest allegations. He has previously apologized for his association with Epstein.
British MPs have been told the first tranche of documents related to Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador is expected “very shortly in early March.”
However, some correspondence between the former MP and Downing Street will be delayed due to the “Metropolitan Police interest,” Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister told the House of Commons on Monday.
Mandelson, widely known in political circles as the “Prince of Darkness” for his Machiavellian skills, became Labour’s director of communications in the 1980s. He helped transform the party into a globalist, capital-friendly project known as “New Labour,” that eventually won a landslide election in 1997 under Tony Blair.
‘Misconduct in public office’
His arrest comes after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of Britain’s King Charles III, was arrested on his 66th birthday last week following further revelations about the former prince’s relationship with Epstein.
Mountbatten-Windsor became the first member of the UK royal family to be arrested in modern history following an early morning raid at his home on the Sandringham estate, also on suspicion of misconduct in public office.
The former prince was released “under investigation” late Thursday evening, after spending 10 hours in a police station in Norfolk, England.
While police did not say what led to Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest, they had previously said they were assessing whether he shared confidential information with Epstein during his decade as a UK trade envoy.
The offense of misconduct in public office is a notoriously difficult-to-prosecute law that experts have criticized for lacking clarity.
Under English law, the offense concerns “serious wilful abuse or neglect of the power or responsibilities of the public office held,” according to the Crown Prosecution Service, the body that prosecutes criminal cases in England and Wales.
Prosecution guidance says the person accused must be deemed a public officer, and there has to be a direct link between the misconduct and abuse of their responsibilities. It must also be committed “without reasonable excuse or justification.”
The offense must be shown to have been willfully committed, meaning the public official must be found to have deliberately done something wrong “knowing it to be wrong or with reckless indifference.”
CNN’s Christian Edwards and Lauren Kent, and James Frater contributed reporting.
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