Chinese spy claims add to Prince Andrew's woes

Chinese spy claims add to Prince Andrew's woes
by AFP Staff Writers
London (AFP) Dec 13, 2024

A former UK security minister on Friday said that it was "extremely embarrassing" that a suspected Chinese spy had become a confidant of disgraced royal Prince Andrew.

The story dominated the UK's front pages on Friday, the latest humiliation for a prince whose reputation is already in tatters over his ties to accused sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Judges on Thursday upheld a ban on the businessman, identified only as H6, from entering the country, and said the prince's troubles had left him "vulnerable" to exploitation.

In the ruling, judges assessed H6 was in a position to "generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent UK figures which could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the Chinese State".

Asked whether the prince's advisers should have been more alert to the danger, former minister of state for security Tom Tugendhat told the BBC that "it's not quite as black and white as it may first appear -- but it's certainly extremely embarrassing".

The tribunal heard that the prince's aide Dominic Hampshire told the suspected spy that he could help in potential dealings with Chinese investors.

"Outside of his (Andrew's) closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on," Hampshire told H6 in a 2020 letter.

H6 also received an invitation to the prince's birthday party.

Former interior minister Suella Braverman banned H6 from entering the country in 2023 after her ministry found he had engaged in "covert and deceptive activity" on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The tribunal upheld the ban on Thursday, ruling that Braverman "was entitled to conclude that his exclusion was justified and proportionate".

A statement from Andrew's office said that the Duke of York had "followed advice" from the government and "ceased all contact with the individual after concerns were raised".

"The duke met the individual through official channels, with nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed."

Andrew withdrew from frontline royal duties in late 2019 after public outrage over a BBC television interview in which he defended his friendship with Epstein.

The former Royal Navy helicopter pilot, 64, in February 2022 settled a US civil case brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.

Andrew's mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, stripped him of his honorary military titles and patronages soon afterwards, effectively shutting him out of royal life.