Prince Andrew

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Prince Andrew has a special talent for choosing friends.

There was the American millionaire Jeff Epstein, convicted for sexual relationships with under-age girls.

Also there was David "Spotty" Rowland, owner of Banque Havilland earlier Kaupthing Luxembourg. He had paid off debt of £85,000 for the prince’s ex-wife.

Not to be forgotten, there was Libyan gun runner, Tarek Kaituni.

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18 March 2011: Why did Prince Andrew visit Gaddafi in Libya with ‘shady’ Tory?

Prince Andrew secretly flew to meet Colonel Gaddafi with ‘shady’ former Tory treasurer David ‘Spotty’ Rowland, it was disclosed last night.

Mr Rowland also accompanied the Duke of York on an official UK trade trip to the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Sheik where Andrew dined with the president of oil-rich Kazakhstan.

The president’s son-in-law bought Andrew’s home South York for £15million – £3million more than the asking price.

The latest disclosures of the Prince’s links with Mr Rowland, 65, the multi-millionaire son of a scrap metal dealer, follow last week’s revelations by The Mail on Sunday that Mr Rowland paid £40,000 to help clear the massive debts of the Duke’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.

The payment was made after the Duke, 51, had launched a controversial bank bought by Mr Rowland from the ashes of the collapsed ¬Icelandic bank, Kaupthing.

During his talks with Gaddafi, Prince Andrew is believed to have discussed the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland in 2009 amid reports that Britain had won a lucrative oil deal for BP from Gaddafi in return.

Gaddafi later said Andrew had pressed for Megrahi’s release.

Buckingham Palace went to extraordinary lengths this week to try to conceal the Libya trip by the Duke and Mr Rowland. Acting on a tip-off from a well-placed source that Andrew made several flights with Mr Rowland, most of which were organised and paid for by the businessman, The Mail on Sunday first approached Buckingham Palace on Friday.

The Palace did not respond until noon yesterday. It said the Prince had made one official visit to Libya in 2007, but did not meet Gaddafi, and ‘Mr Rowland was not on this trip’.

After several evasive replies, senior sources eventually admitted the Prince met Gaddafi in Libya in 2008 and privately on two other occasions. Challenged to confirm that Mr Rowland and the Duke flew to Libya together secretly when the Prince met Gaddafi, a spokeswoman effectively admitted that they did.

But she suggested that while they had gone to Libya together, Mr Rowland was not with the Duke when he met Gaddafi.

In a terse statement, the Palace said: ‘Mr Rowland did not attend any calls with the Duke of York on Colonel Gaddafi. We do not comment on private visits of members of the Royal Family. Members of the Royal Family occasionally take people with them on UK and overseas visits, and these people are recharged the cost of the flight.’

In May 2008, Mr Rowland accompanied the Duke when he jetted to Sharm-el-Sheik to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF). The Duke was there as the UK Trade Investment (UKTI) special envoy.

While at the event, he dined with Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Savoy hotel and attended a Kazakh-themed evening. The two men have helped to forge many lucrative deals between British and Kazakh companies as a result of their joint efforts.

Asked about the trip to Sharm-el-Sheik by the Duke and Mr Rowland, a Palace spokesman said: ‘The Duke of York and David Rowland travelled to the WEF in May 2008, of which the Duke of York was co-chair. Mr Rowland covered his own costs.’

Asked if Mr Rowland paid for the flight, the spokesman said: ‘Mr ¬Rowland covered his own costs on the visit. The costs of the Royal Household were met by the Royal Travel Grant-in-Aid and UKTI.’

Prince Andrew’s dealings with wealthy Kazakhs are not restricted to his jaunts to their home country, either. The Prince is close friends with British-based Kazakh socialite Goga Ashkenazi.

In 2008 he dined with her hours after she gave birth to a son by her lover, Timur Kulibayev, who later bought South York. According to some reports, Ms Ashkenazi was the go-between in the deal.

The Mail on Sunday reported last week how Mr Rowland paid £40,000 to Sarah Ferguson’s former aide Kate Waddington to help clear Ms Ferguson’s £5million debts.

Mr Rowland paid the money after the Duke showered praise on him at the launch of his Havilland Bank in Luxembourg in 2009.

A year later Mr Rowland was appointed as Tory treasurer after the Conservatives were told Mr Rowland ‘had the backing of the Queen’, largely as a result of his support for Sarah Ferguson.

But Mr Rowland, once denounced as ‘shady’ in Parliament, was forced to quit as treasurer within weeks as a result of a Tory backlash over his business reputation.

These latest disclosures will add pressure on Prince Andrew to step down as special envoy to UKTI.

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'Sara Kensington' - very regal new name for girl in Epstein sex case

A beautiful blonde who allegedly recruited schoolgirls for sexual encounters with a paedophile friend of Prince Andrew has been ‘rewarded’ with a lavish jet-set lifestyle, complete with a new identity.

According to legal documents, Sarah Kellen, 31, managed a harem of under-age ‘sex slaves’ at a Palm Beach mansion in Florida where the Duke of York was treated to massages by Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire financier who is under investigation by the FBI for alleged sex-trafficking.

As revealed by our photograph, however, Kellen is now moving in rather more elite circles... after dyeing her hair brown and adopting a false name.

As Sara Kensington, she has become a fixture on the US social scene, buying tickets to charity parties, dating a scion of a railroad dynasty and driving a vintage open-top sports car.

Using two other aliases – Sarah Lynnelle and Sara Bonk (her mother’s maiden name, rather than any admission of guilt) – to cover her tracks, she divides her time between Epstein’s Florida villa and New York.

She shares a luxury flat in the city with Epstein’s 29-year-old personal assistant, Story Cowles, whose mother is married to the heir to a railroad fortune. The flat is registered to an Epstein relative.

Kellen was named as Epstein’s co-conspirator in a 2005 police investigation into the 58-year-old tycoon’s ‘erotic massages’ by under-age girls. She was granted immunity from prosecution after he used his political connections to strike a controversial plea-bargain deal under which he served just 13 months in jail.

Kellen and Cowles visited him regularly, according to prison logs reviewed by The Mail on Sunday. Cowles described himself at the time as a ‘paralegal’.

After Epstein was released, Cowles, who has an arrest record himself for careless driving and possession of marijuana, described himself as Epstein’s ‘personal assistant’.

In an interview during subsequent civil proceedings, Kellen was asked if the Prince had sexual contact with girls whom Epstein employed as ‘masseuses’. She refused to answer, citing her constitutional right to remain silent.

Legal experts say she is potentially a key witness in the new FBI inquiry into Epstein. It was launched after one of his former employees, Virginia Roberts, told The Mail on Sunday newspaper that he required her to have sex with his friends and flew her to London for the first of what she says were three meetings with Andrew.

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23 November 2008: Prince Andrew takes a holiday with gun smuggler in Libya

PRINCE ANDREW enjoyed a four-day holiday in Tunisia last week in which he accepted hospitality from a convicted gun smuggler before visiting Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader. His office says he is repaying the cost.

Andrew toured desert sights, stayed in top-class hotels and ate meals with Tarek Kaituni, his Libyan-born friend who in 2005 was convicted of buying a machinegun and secretly attempting to transport it from Holland to France.

The pair were accompanied by about eight other people including several women, bodyguards and assistants. On Friday they flew from Tunisia to neighbouring Libya in order to continue their holiday with Gadaffi.

Kaituni was seen paying bills for the group at two hotels.

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28 March 2011: Libyan gun-runner and friend of Prince Andrew 'gave Princess Beatrice £18k necklace' before Duke allegedly lobbied British company for him

A gun-smuggling Libyan fixer and friend of the Duke of York presented Princess Beatrice with an £18,000 necklace months before the duke allegedly lobbied a British company on his behalf, it has been claimed.

Tarek Kaituni gave the young royal a gold pendant with a solitaire diamond after he was invited by Prince Andrew to her 21st birthday party in Spain in August 2009, his former girlfriend has revealed.

Manel Hamrouni spoke out for the first time this weekend – and claimed Andrew played a role in introducing his friend Kaituni to representatives of the Greater Manchester-based water treatment firm Biwater, who he had met during an official trip to Libya in his role as UK trade envoy in 2007.

Three months after Beatrice’s party, Andrew told a Biwater employee over dinner at a Paris hotel that Kaituni deserved to be paid commission for working with them, Miss Hamrouni alleged.

In addition to his daughter’s extravagant gift, the Queen’s favourite son is said to have been presented with expensive watches including one costing £175,000.

Most of the allegations were denied by Buckingham Palace.

But aides tellingly declined to comment on the existence of Beatrice’s necklace, which has been acknowledged by Kaituni and places Andrew much closer to Kaituni than previously thought, despite the Libyan’s closeness to Colonel Gadaffi and his convictions for gun smuggling and drugs offences.

Miss Hamrouni, who dated Kaituni for two years until last April, told the Sunday Times: ‘Tarek told me Andrew had put him together with Biwater because the company was having some problems dealing with the Libyans. Tarek went to Libya and spoke to people there but then he didn’t get paid a commission by Biwater. Apparently they didn’t feel he’d earned it.

‘He asked Andrew to help and there was a dinner in Paris where Andrew spoke to someone from Biwater and told them he thought they should pay Tarek. I was there, too, with Tarek.’

She added: ‘Andrew was pushing for Tarek to be paid and the guy from Biwater was saying they hadn’t got the money from the contract yet so they couldn’t.

‘A few days later Tarek got word that some money had been paid into a special account he had set up in Germany. He said it was 600,000 euros. He went to Germany for a day and came back with 100,000 euros in cash. He gave 30,000 euros of it to me and I went to London and spent it on clothes. Tarek still wasn’t very happy, though.

‘He talked about giving Andrew a gift later to say thank you but I don’t know what happened about that because Tarek and I split up soon after.’

She went on: ‘Tarek was always giving people expensive watches as gifts. He gave four or five to Andrew, including a gold Rolex and a Cartier. The most expensive was a Patek Philippe, exactly like his own, which he gave to Andrew for his birthday. Tarek told me that watch cost 200,000 euros.’

Biwater denied that Kaituni received any money, and royal insiders said Andrew does not recall the meal.

The allegations will heap further pressure on Andrew, who is fourth in line to the throne, to stand down as ambassador with Whitehall’s business body UK Trade and Investment.

Over the past six weeks, he has been accused repeatedly of a serious lack of judgement by blurring the line between his taxpayer-funded role and his personal friendships and financial arrangements.

His associates include the billionaire convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the ‘shady’ Tory financier David Rowland, both of whom helped to pay off the debts of his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Kaituni, 47, first met Andrew, 51, in 2005 - the same year he was convicted of attempting to smuggle a machine gun from Holland to France. He had already spent a year in jail for possession of drugs in Tunisia.

Despite his criminal background, Andrew holidayed with him several times in North Africa, where the duke was twice introduced to Colonel Gadaffi and also met Sakher El Materi, son-in-law of the deposed Tunisian president.

A picture has now emerged of Kaituni and his girlfriend among a small number of guests at a celebration to mark Beatrice’s milestone birthday near the Spanish resort of Marbella – where Kaituni gave her the diamond necklace.

It is understood to have been worth £18,000 but was bought at a discounted price of around £4,300. Kaituni said a number of guests pooled together to afford it.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman declined to comment on the pendant, but denied that Andrew had ever received personal gifts from Kaituni.

Biwater confirmed that it had had contact with Kaituni but denied he had ever been paid. It said Kaituni had approached it ‘directly’.

A spokeswoman said: ‘Biwater was approached by Tarek Kaituni in 2009. No agreements were made and no contracts have been awarded to Biwater since contact with Kaituni and no payments were ever made to Kaituni for any work in Libya. All contact ceased in early 2010.’

But Kaituni said he was approached by the company through a cousin of his. He said: ‘They never paid anything. I never asked them. Because they were not professional. I told them to go to hell.’

He said of the duke: ‘This man, he does the best job in this country. I wish anybody in the world can be like him.’

Buckingham Palace said: ‘We do not comment on private gifts or on private events attended by members of the royal family.

‘The Duke of York was introduced to the work of Biwater in Libya on an official visit to the country in November 2007. His Royal Highness did not introduce Mr Kaituni to Biwater. The Duke of York has not been involved in any discussion involving the remuneration of Mr Kaituni in respect of Biwater or any other company.’

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Prince Andrew is under further pressure over his work as Britain's special trade representative after it was alleged that a Libyan businessman gave his daughter Princess Beatrice a diamond necklace for her 21st birthday two years ago.

The businessman, Tarek Kaituni, who is now a US citizen, has convictions for possession of drugs – for which he served a prison sentence in 1998 – and attempting to smuggle a sub-machine gun into France.

He was a guest at Beatrice's birthday party at a private villa near Marbella, during which he was photographed with the prince sitting at the same table. Kaituni's former girlfriend Manel Hamrouni, who was pictured sitting next to the prince, claimed to the Sunday Times that the prince had lobbied for the businessman to be given a consultancy with the British water treatment company Biwater and paid commission for helping to secure business in Libya.

The prince's spokesman denied that he had ever acted on Kaituni's behalf, received personal gifts or solicited payments for him. He described Andrew and Kaituni as "certainly associates".

Asked whether the princess had been given a diamond necklace, he replied: "We never comment on any gifts given to members of the royal family."

The prince's association with Kaituni is the latest to discomfort the royal family and ministers concerned about how he has used his role as a trade envoy over the last 10 years. Earlier this month revelations about his friendship with the US billionaire and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein caused Andrew to admit he had been unwise and government sources to suggest he might have to consider his position if more negative stories emerged.

When the Labour MP Chris Bryant attempted to raise the prince's connection with Kaituni in the Commons three weeks ago he was censured by the Speaker, John Bercow, who told him that references to the royal family under parliamentary privilege should be "sparing and respectful".

The value of the diamond necklace is the subject of differing estimates, with Hamrouni claiming it was worth nearly £20,000. A British jeweller related to the person who sold it said Kaituni had bought it for £4,000 and Kaituni himself told the paper he had chipped in with others to help buy it.

Biwater acknowledged that Kaituni had approached them in 2009 but said it had made no agreement with him, had not paid him anything and had severed connections in 2010.

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Early in 2010, it was revealed that the Kazakhstan President's billionaire son-in-law Timur Kulibayev paid the Duke of York's representatives £15m – £3m over the asking price – via offshore companies, for the Duke's Surrey mansion, Sunninghill Park. Kulibayev frequently appears in US dispatches as one of the men who has accumulated millions in gas-rich Kazakhstan.

In May 2012, it was reported that Swiss and Italian police investigating "a network of personal and business relationships" allegedly used for "international corruption" were looking at the activities of Enviro Pacific Investments which charges "multi-million pound fees" to energy companies wishing to deal with Kazakhstan. The trust is believed to have paid £6m towards the purchase of Sunninghill which now appears derelict. In response a Palace spokesman said "This was a private sale between two trusts. There was never any impropriety on the part of The Duke of York"

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28 February 2014: Is Prince Andrew dating George Clooney's Croatian model ex Monika Jakisic?

*Duke of York seen enjoying a coffee with Croatian model Monika Jakisic
*Believed to have celebrated prince's 54th birthday in Italian restaurant
*'Croatian Sensation' said to have dated Hollywood star George Clooney

This is the Croatian beauty said to have caught Prince Andrew’s eye.

Monika Jakisic, 34, who once dated George Clooney, has apparently enjoyed intimate dinner dates with the Queen’s son.

The pair were reportedly seen at Mayfair restaurant Cecconi’s celebrating Andrew’s 54th birthday on February 19.

They sat next to each other where they could be seen openly ‘cuddling up’, said the report in US Weekly magazine. ‘Andrew was making Monika laugh and kissing her hand,’ it added.

The model, known as the Croatian Sensation, also gave Andrew a birthday card and the waiter brought him a cake for dessert.

The pair were seen again at The Arts Club in Dover Street a few days later where the prince wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.

‘They looked like two love birds,’ US Weekly claimed.

Buckingham Palace would not comment and Miss Jakisic, who fled Croatia with her family when she was ten, was not at her £1.2million home in North London.

Her own website, Facebook page and Twitter feed feature sultry modelling shots.

There is no mention of Andrew but a post on Twitter a few days after the alleged birthday date, said mysteriously: ‘Everything Is Possible’.

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4 April 2014

The bombshell court document that claims Prince Andrew knew about billionaire friend's abuse of under-age girls

Three months ago, a solicitor called Jack Scarola walked into the vast art-deco county courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, and handed a 23-page legal document to its clerk.

Rubber-stamped Exhibit D, and intended to be used as evidence in a forthcoming trial, the neatly typed bundle of papers — which the Daily Mail obtained a copy of this week — offers an extraordinary insight into the life, and crimes, of one of America’s most notorious sex offenders.

It carries a transcript of a lengthy telephone conversation between Mr Scarola and a 30-year-old former resident of Florida, Virginia Roberts, who now lives in Australia.

Ms Roberts is one of scores of women regarded by U.S. prosecutors as ‘victims’ of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sixty-one-year-old Epstein achieved infamy in 2008 when he was jailed for soliciting under-age girls for prostitution. His downfall scandalised America due to both the high-profile circles in which he had moved, and the audacity of his crimes.

The billionaire had counted numerous celebrities, politicians and socialites as friends, including President Bill Clinton, businessman Donald Trump and supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Perhaps most controversially, he was also on chummy terms with two senior figures in British royal circles: the Duke of York and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

Epstein was first arrested in 2005, after the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl told Florida police that he’d paid her daughter $200 (£120) for an ‘erotic massage’.

An FBI investigation then led to Epstein being accused of keeping a harem of women — many of them vulnerable teenagers — at his luxury homes in New York and Palm Beach, and on a private island in the Caribbean.

He allegedly staged orgies on board his private jet, and flew girls as young as 12 to ‘topless parties’ at his pink, £6 million Florida mansion, which was dubbed the ‘House of Sin’.

By 2008, the FBI believed it had identified at least 20 victims who might level sexual allegations against the financier in court. At that point, however, Epstein struck a ‘plea deal’ with U.S. prosecutors. It saw him confess to two relatively minor charges related to child prostitution, with the rest of the case being dropped.

He received an 18-month jail sentence, of which 13 were actually spent behind bars, and was put on Florida’s sex offenders’ register. He escaped prosecution on more serious paedophilia charges, which might have seen him jailed for life.

But Epstein’s legal travails are not over. In recent years, more than 40 women have filed lawsuits claiming that Epstein sexually abused them.

Most of their claims have been settled out of court, preventing their accounts of his alleged crimes from being made public — but Virginia Roberts is proving harder to shake off.

The mother-of-three says she spent four years in Epstein’s employment after being hired to perform ‘erotic massages’ for him when she was a vulnerable girl of 15.

She has already spoken publicly of her ordeal once, in a 2011 interview with a British newspaper. Back then, she told how she’d been paid $200 a time to grant sexual favours to Epstein from 1998 onwards, and revealed that he’d introduced her to Prince Andrew on at least three occasions.

In 2001, aged 17, she had danced with the Prince at London’s Tramp nightclub, she said, and had sat on his knee at a house party in New York. Later that year, she’d spent time with him at Little St James, a private island Epstein owns in the Caribbean.

After the first encounter, Jeffrey Epstein paid Roberts $15,000 in cash. A photo taken at the time showed Andrew standing in his shirtsleeves with an arm round her bare midriff. There is, however, no suggestion that the Duke was involved in any form of sexual exploitation.

A heated controversy followed these revelations, aggravated by the news that Sarah Ferguson had accepted a £15,000 gift from Epstein to help pay off debts.

Amid public outrage, Ferguson said she had ‘made a gigantic error of judgment’ and agreed to repay the cash. In July 2011, the Duke of York agreed to step down as the UK’s special representative for trade.

Today, it seems ‘Exhibit D’ could drag new and ugly skeletons related to this inglorious affair from the closet. The document also questions how much the Prince actually knew about his one-time friend’s sexual peccadillos.

n the past, whenever the Epstein case has been reported, it has been claimed there is no suggestion that Andrew was ever aware that the tycoon paid under-age girls for sex.
But in Exhibit D, Roberts alleges otherwise.

Asked whether the Prince would have ‘relevant information’ about ‘Jeffrey’s taking advantage of under-age girls’, she replies: ‘Yes, he would know a lot of the truth.’

It should at this stage be stressed that the Mail has no evidence to corroborate this and other claims made by Virginia Roberts in the document.