Mandelson arrested over 'baseless' claim he planned to flee to British Virgin Islands
Peter Mandelson was arrested Monday after Met police received intelligence he planned to flee to the British Virgin Islands. His lawyers called the claim baseless and demanded evidence.
Mandelson condemns Met arrest over 'baseless' flight claim
Peter Mandelson was taken into custody on Monday after Metropolitan police received intelligence suggesting the former Labour peer was preparing to flee the United Kingdom for the British Virgin Islands, theguardian.com reports. He was released on bail in the early hours of Tuesday morning and returned to his north London home.
Lawyers for Mandelson, the firm Mishcon de Reya, said the arrest contradicted an existing agreement with police that he would attend a voluntary interview under caution in early March. The arrest, they said, was prompted by a "baseless" suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad.
"There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion," the statement read. "We have asked the Metropolitan police for the evidence relied upon to justify the arrest."
Detectives assessed the intelligence from an unnamed source and judged it sufficiently credible to act without waiting for the scheduled interview. When Mandelson was released, travel restrictions were imposed as part of his bail conditions; it remained unclear whether his passport was surrendered.
In a message sent to friends at around 4am on Tuesday, Mandelson described the allegations as "complete fiction." He wrote that police had been told only that day that they needed to improvise an arrest, and asked: "Who or what is behind this?"
The Guardian understands the intelligence included a specific reference to the British Virgin Islands as a potential destination, though that territory does maintain an extradition agreement with the United Kingdom.
Reports that Lord Speaker Michael Forsyth had passed a tip to Scotland Yard were denied outright by parliamentary authorities. A spokesperson for Forsyth said: "Any suggestion at all that the Lord Speaker received information about Lord Mandelson's movements or communicated any such information to the Metropolitan police service is entirely false and without foundation."
Mandelson's arrest centres on claims that he passed sensitive government information to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The former peer has maintained throughout that his overriding priority is to cooperate with the investigation and clear his name.
The episode adds further pressure to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who appointed Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington — a role from which he was sacked last September following scrutiny of his Epstein links. Mandelson subsequently left both the Labour party and the House of Lords.
Downing Street is bracing for the imminent release of a Cabinet Office "due diligence" report, which sources said warned Starmer of the serious "reputational risk" of proceeding with the appointment. Officials described the document as potentially "very difficult" for the prime minister, and suggested that his response at the time — asking former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, a friend of Mandelson, to relay its contents — could be viewed as "completely inadequate."
A government source told the Guardian: "It was a mistake to appoint Mandelson, as the PM has said. He lied during the recruitment process. What we know now we didn't when he was sacked, let alone when he was appointed."
The Cabinet Office document is expected to be among the most damaging in the first tranche of papers relating to the appointment. Further releases remain restricted while the police inquiry is ongoing.
Separately, the government on Tuesday agreed to release documents relating to the 2001 appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as a British trade envoy. Government sources from the period said the request for the former prince to inherit the role from the Duke of Kent came directly from Buckingham Palace and was approved by ministers as a formality. In parliament, trade minister Chris Bryant described Mountbatten-Windsor as a "rude, arrogant and entitled man."
Both sets of document releases are expected to shed light on how two figures now under investigation over their relationships with Epstein were handled by successive governments. Officials cautioned, however, that documents concerning Andrew could take weeks or months longer to be made public, given the ongoing nature of the inquiry.
Source: Google News VG — Crime