Donald Trump said this Sunday, November 3, “I am sorry for the British royal family,” after Defense Minister John Healey announced in London that former Prince Andrew would be stripped of his last honorary military title.
“It is a terrible thing that has happened to the family. It is a tragic situation. I feel sorry for the family,” said the American president aboard the presidential plane, in response to a question from an AFP journalist.
John Healey had previously indicated that the British Government was going to strip the brother of King Charles III, implicated for his links with former American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, of his last remaining honorary military title.
“We have seen Andrew renounce the honorary titles he held within the army and, again under the leadership of the king, we are now working to strip him of the last title he holds, that of vice admiral,” the defense minister told the BBC.
He also added that the government would follow the king’s advice regarding the military medals Andrew earned during his career.
Andrew denies any involvement
The British sovereign announced on Thursday that his younger brother was stripped of his royal titles, amid growing public disapproval of Andrew, 65,’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.
The king’s younger brother notably participated in the Falklands War in 1982, as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Navy. He retired from the military in 2001 after 22 years of service.
Andrew has always denied having had sexual relations with Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein’s main accuser, at the time when she was under the control of the American billionaire.
But following new details contained in the posthumous memoirs of Virginia Giuffre, who committed suicide last April, the king stripped Andrew of all his titles, now identified as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. New revelations could further tarnish the image of the former prince.
On Sunday, the Sunday Times claims that in recent years Andrew had always rejected any mention of Epstein’s victims in Buckingham Palace’s communication about the scandal.
In their statement released Thursday, King Charles and Queen Camilla said their “thoughts and deepest sympathy have been and will continue to be with the victims and survivors of all forms of abuse.”
And last week, documents published in the framework of a trial in the United States revealed an exchange of emails between Andrew and Epstein in 2010, shortly after the American was released from prison where he was serving a sentence for pimping minors. In one of his emails, Andrew told Epstein that it would be “a pleasure to meet you in person.”
Source: BFM TV
