LONDON, March 25 — A team has started searching through records related to the former Prince Andrew’s previous role as a trade envoy ahead of publication, amid fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, a UK minister said yesterday.

Britain’s government committed late last month to releasing the documents following a deepening scandal sparked by the US authorities’ publication of millions of files related to the late Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

The Department of Business and Trade was leading work to identify and prepare the material for release, Minister Chris Bryant said in a written statement.

“We have begun searching historic departmental records and have commissioned parallel searches in other departments, in particular the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Cabinet Office,” the trade minister said.

The scandal has reverberated around the British monarchy and political circles.

The former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and former minister and ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson are both now the subject of high-profile police investigations.

Both were arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office over their connections to Epstein

Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal titles last year, has been released by police under investigation.

He is being probed by police over allegations that he shared sensitive documents with Epstein during his time as envoy.

Vetting documents on Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as trade envoy, a post he held from 2001 to 2011, are among the documents the government has pledged to release.

The former duke, long embroiled in scandals over his friendship with Epstein, has denied any wrongdoing.

Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, claimed she was trafficked three times to have sex with the British royal, starting in 2001 and twice when she was 17.

Mountbatten-Windsor settled a US civil lawsuit in 2022 brought by Giuffre while not admitting liability. — AFP