Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother has confirmed the notorious photo of Prince Andrew with his sex accuser is set in the accused madam’s house — and refused to rule out the royal being called as a witness at her trial.
Ian Maxwell, 64, initially tried to brush off discussing the photo that Andrew has suggested is a fake when quizzed about it Wednesday during his first broadcast interview in more than 30 years.
“I don’t know anything about the photograph other than that I’ve seen it’s been published … I know it’s of interest to your listeners, but nonetheless I am not here to talk about that,” Maxwell told the BBC.
He was pressed further, however, and was asked, “But do you recognize the setting of that? Was it taken in Ghislaine’s house in London?”
“I do recognize that setting,” Maxwell confirmed.
Photo from 2001 that was included in court files shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre who says Jeffrey Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince.Â
(U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
The image, showing the disgraced royal with his arm around Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s waist with Ghislaine smiling behind them, is highly contentious because Andrew has repeatedly denied knowing Giuffre.
He also said he does not recall ever going to the upstairs of Maxwell’s then-London home, where the image is said to have been taken in 2001.
Giuffre was 17 at the time — and has repeatedly claimed in interviews and court documents that it was the night Ghislaine Maxwell and late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein first made her have sex with the prince.
Maxwell’s brother was asked if the accused madam “[hopes] that people like Prince Andrew, who have known Ghislaine for a long time, would speak in her support.”
“We’re in the process of gathering together the witnesses and so forth … so I can’t comment on the makeup of who’s going to be saying what to who,” Ian Maxwell told the BBC.
Asked bluntly if it is “possible that Prince Andrew is called as a witness in Ghislaine’s defense,” Maxwell said, “I can’t answer that. I just don’t know.”
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As for whether his sister “considers [Andrew] as a friend still,” Maxwell said, “I would assume that she does, yes.”
In contrast, Maxwell insisted that his sister’s friendship with late pedophile Epstein had ended around 20 years ago, and claimed he only saw them together, “I think only once in my entire life.”
“I wish she’d never met the man, obviously,” Maxwell said, claiming that his sister is enduring “grotesque” conditions behind bars in Brooklyn that “amounts to torture” while awaiting her trial on sex-trafficking charges linked to Epstein.
“The sustained brutal, degrading – and wholly unnecessary – conditions of my sister’s solitary imprisonment are a disgrace to any civilized democracy.”
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