The Metropolitan Police in London arrested former UK ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson on Monday on suspicion of misconduct in a public office due to his links with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Officers arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in a public office. He was arrested at a residence in Camden on Monday, February 23, and has been taken to a London police station for questioning,” a police spokesperson said in a brief statement.
This follows several search warrants executed at his residences in Camden, north London, and in Wiltshire, a county west of the British capital. The former ambassador has called the accusations against him “false.”
Mandelson’s appointment in December 2024 has put British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a difficult position. He has had to apologize for trusting the former ambassador’s word, claiming he was unaware of the depth, magnitude, and scope of his relationship with Epstein.
Mandelson, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Tony Blair, was dismissed from his diplomatic post in September after numerous emails linking him to Epstein were leaked. He left the Labour Party in early February.
On January 30, the US Department of Justice released more than three million files related to the Epstein case. Among them are three payments of $25,000 (just over €21,000) to Mandelson, sent between 2003 and 2004 from the billionaire’s bank accounts at JP Morgan.
Mandelson, the former European Commissioner for Trade, is being investigated for allegedly revealing sensitive information to Epstein about the €500 billion bailout the Eurozone was preparing to approve in 2010, when he was a minister in the government of then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (2007-2010).
The files, which reveal intimate messages between Mandelson and Epstein, include a photograph of the former British minister in his underwear next to a woman whose face is obscured or blurred. The politician also stayed at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment in 2009 while serving a sentence of house arrest for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The Epstein scandal has led to the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who was responsible for the decision to appoint Mandelson. Other figures, such as his former communications director, Tim Allan, and his chief of staff, Chris Wormald, have also resigned.
