“Unfortunately because the U.S. maintains the death penalty on its statute books, this decision affects you,” the Central Authority wrote in a message, the contents of which were read to The Washington Post. “The U.S. is not, however, the only country affected by this pause, and the UKCA is mindful of the impact the decision to pause transmission might have on some proceedings. … Our policy colleagues are working through the implications, and we hope to be in a position to reconsider the transU.S. Mission to third countries in cases where the death penalty is not the maximum sentence possible in due course.”
A spokesperson for the British Home Office said in an email, “The UK continues to process and cooperate with Mutual Legal Assistance Requests,” suggesting that whatever pause there had been, it was now lifted, at least in some measure.
Two U.S. Justice Department officials said, though, that the timing — more than two months after the Supreme Court decision was issued — was curious, and they worried about a possible ulterior motive.
The United States and the United Kingdom are mired in a number of politically charged legal cases in which each is seeking the other’s help — to little avail. Most notably, in April, the Justice Department made a formal, Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request to speak with Britain’s Prince Andrew as part of its investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by now-deceased multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, the two Justice Department officials said.
Andrew has said he is willing to cooperate. But U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, whose office in Manhattan is handling the Epstein investigation, has publicly disputed that, declaring at a March news conference that the prince had instead “shut the door” on helping.
A senior Justice Department official — speaking on the condition of anonymity like others in this story because of the matter’s political and legal sensitivity — said some feared the U.K.’s decision to broadly pause transmitting of evidence in response to Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty requests might be connected to the dispute over the prince. A Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, also known by the acronym MLAT, governs how countries share information and cooperate in law enforcement matters.
“This is deeply troubling,” the official said. “It appears on its face that the U.K. may have suspended processing of MLAT requests not for legitimate reasons, but to protect a member of the royal family.”
British officials, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, disputed that the pause was connected to the recent dust-up over Andrew, saying it was instead because of the Supreme Court ruling in March and concerns over the death penalty in the United States.
A third senior Justice Department official said that in the period since the ruling, the Justice Department and the British Home Office “have been in discussions regarding the data protection implications of that decision. Any temporary pause in mutual legal assistance must be understood in that context.”
The public squabbling over Andrew significantly intensified this week. After the Sun newspaper and others reported on the Justice Department’s MLAT request for his cooperation, the law firm representing Andrew, Blackfords LLP, issued a statement taking aim at Berman for his public statements. The firm claimed that the prince had “on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the DOJ.”
Berman shot back that the prince had “yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate,” even though he had “nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally — through the very same counsel who issued today’s release — that he would not come in for such an interview.”
“If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him,” Berman said.
One of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, claims she was paid by Epstein for sexual encounters with the prince when she was 17 years old. A photo, reportedly taken in 2001, shows the prince with his arm around her bare waist, and visible in the background is Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who accusers say was Epstein’s girlfriend and madam. Andrew claimed to the BBC last year that he had “no recollection” of meeting Giuffre.
Asked specifically about Andrew’s situation, a Home Office spokesperson said, “As a matter of long-standing policy and practice, we neither confirm nor deny the existence of mutual legal assistance requests.”
Spokespeople for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Justice Department declined to comment.
The case that sparked the March Supreme Court decision in the U.K. is over British cooperation in a U.S. investigation into two Islamic State militants — Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh — who are suspected of killing Western hostages and are being held by the U.S. military in Iraq. The two were part of a four-man Islamic State cell known as “the Beatles,” named for the members’ British accents.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia want to try the men in the United States and have told their bosses they have evidence — with the most compelling material coming from Britain — to support charges such as conspiring to provide material support to terrorists with acts resulting in death, and conspiring to take hostages with acts resulting in death. But Britain’s help with the case has essentially been put on hold by a lawsuit in the U.K. over the matter.
In the June 4 message to U.S. authorities, the U.K.’s Central Authority wrote that a “full lifting” of the pause in transmitting evidence would not take place until the final order in that case had been “received and fully considered.”
The U.S. government also is pressing for the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on charges of violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack into a government computer, in a case that remains mired in what is likely to be a lengthy court process.
For their part, British authorities have lashed out at the U.S.s for refusing to extradite an U.S. woman who was driving on the wrong side of the road and collided with 19-year-old Harry Dunn.
The woman, Anne Sacoolas, was charged in Britain with “causing death by dangerous driving.” In January, the U.S. government declined to turn her over, arguing that doing so would essentially nullify diplomatic immunity. Sacoolas is married to a U.S. intelligence officer, whose immunity presumably would extend to his family.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said at the time that his government “would have acted differently if this had been a U.K. diplomat serving in the U.S.” and that the U.S. decision was a “denial of justice.