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LONDON: Prince Andrew of Britain on Friday renounced his title of Duke of York and other honors after being increasingly embroiled in scandals around his ties to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I will... no longer use my title or the honors which have been conferred upon me,” Andrew, 65, said in a statement.
He said his decision came after discussions with his brother, King Charles III, and his own “immediate and wider family.”
“I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first,” he said.
He again denied all allegations, but said “we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family.”
Andrew, who stepped back from public life in 2019, will remain a prince, as he is the second son of the late queen Elizabeth II.
But he will no longer hold the title of Duke of York that she had conferred on him.
His ex-wife Sarah Ferguson will also no longer use the title of Duchess of York, though his daughters Beatrice and Eugenie remain princesses.
The bombshell announcement came after new allegations emerged this week in the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, the woman at the center of the Epstein scandal.
She wrote that Andrew had behaved as if having sex with her was his “birthright.”
In “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” Giuffre said she had sex with Andrew on three separate occasions including when she was under 18.
Giuffre rose to public prominence after alleging the disgraced US financier Epstein used her as a sex slave and that Andrew had assaulted her.
Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s accusations and avoided trial by paying a multimillion-dollar settlement.
In extracts published by The Guardian this week, Giuffre describes meeting the prince in London in March 2001 when she was 17.
Andrew was allegedly challenged to guess her age, which he did correctly, adding by way of explanation: “My daughters are just a little younger than you.”

- ‘Entitled’ -

Giuffre and Andrew later went to the Tramp nightclub in London, where she said he was “sort of a bumbling dancer, and I remember he sweated profusely.”
They later returned to the London house of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend, where they had sex, she alleged.
“He was friendly enough, but still entitled — as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright,” Giuffre wrote.
Giuffre, a US and Australian citizen, took her own life at her farm in Western Australia on April 25.
Andrew’s association with Epstein has left his reputation in tatters and made him a source of embarrassment to the king.
In a devastating 2019 television interview, Andrew — once feted as a handsome war hero who served as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War — denied ever meeting Giuffre and defended his friendship with Epstein.

NEW ORLEANS: The FBI has accused a Louisiana resident of participating in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, then lying about his past and fraudulently obtaining a visa to live in the US
According to an FBI criminal complaint unsealed this week, Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub Al-Muhtadi armed himself and gathered a group to cross from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel during the attack that left more than 1,200 people dead.
Hamas fighters also kidnapped more than 250 people, including dozens of American citizens, during the raid. This week, Hamas released the 20 remaining living hostages after the two sides agreed to a tenuous ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.
Al-Muhtadi was an operative of the Gaza-based military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, according to the complaint prepared by FBI Supervisory Special Agent Alexandria M. Thoman O’Donnell and submitted to a federal judge on Oct. 6. O’Donnell serves on a task force investigating the murder and kidnapping of American citizens during the attack two years ago.
On his US visa application, Al-Muhtadi denied he had ever been involved in terrorist activities, and became a legal permanent resident in 2024, the complaint says.
The complaint says the agent requested an arrest warrant for Al-Muhtadi on Oct. 6, but does not specify when and where he was taken into custody. The complaint says he could face charges for visa fraud and for conspiring to provide support for a foreign terrorist organization.
Inmate records show someone with the same name and age is being held at St. Martin Parish Correctional Center, near Lafayette. He was scheduled to appear in federal court Friday morning.
No attorney was identified for Al-Muhtadi in court filings. The FBI declined to provide more details to The Associated Press, citing the government shutdown.
“Justice will be served,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said in an X post. He added that Al-Muhtadi might be sent to the newly opened immigration detention wing of the state’s maximum security prison, known as “Louisiana Lockup”: “Perhaps this is Louisiana Lockup’s newest resident?”
Al-Muhtadi’s social media and email accounts revealed a yearslong affiliation with a Hamas-aligned paramilitary group, including carrying out firearms training, according to the FBI.
On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas forces attacked Israel, the then-military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, called for “the masses” to join in.
Al-Muhtadi told his associates to “get ready” and “bring the rifles,” and that “there is kidnapping, and it’s a game, which will be a good one,” according to phone calls reviewed by the FBI. He also asked an associate to bring ammunition.
The FBI says Al-Muhtadi coordinated an armed group to travel into Israel and that during the attack his phone pinged a cell tower near Kfar Aza, an Israeli village where dozens of residents were killed and approximately 19 kidnapped.
In June 2024, Al-Muhtadi submitted an electronic US visa application in Cairo. In the application, he denied serving in any paramilitary organization or having ever engaged in terrorist activities. His application said he intended to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and work in “car repairs or food services.” He entered the US in September 2024.
Al-Muhtadi lived in Tulsa through May but by early June had relocated to Lafayette, where he worked for a local restaurant, the FBI says.
An unidentified FBI agent repeatedly met with Al-Muhtadi in Lafayette from July to September this year.
An associate advised Al-Muhtadi not to contact anyone from the paramilitary group because he was under surveillance in the US and to avoid posting on social media in support of Hamas. The FBI says Al-Muhtadi responded that he could post whatever he wanted, including pictures of Hamas leaders, and he would be safe.