Prince Andrew says he has “ceased all contact” with alleged Chinese spy

Prince Andrew has said he has “ceased all contact” with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government.

In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met with the man “through official channels” and that “nothing of a sensitive nature was ever discussed.”

The alleged spy has been expelled from the United Kingdom after a ruling by the United Kingdom’s semi-secret national security court.

The man, known only as H6, was described to the court as a “close confidant” of Prince Andrew who had formed an “unusual degree of trust” with the duke.

In 2023, H6 filed an appeal against its initial ban, but the decision was upheld by the court.

The judges were told that the businessman was trying to take advantage of Prince Andrew’s influence.

The duke’s office said it was “unable to comment further on matters relating to national security”.

Her statement did not specify when she stopped contacting the man or the duration of her communications.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment, saying they do not act on behalf of the prince, who is not a working royal.

China’s embassy in the UK has denied the espionage allegation, saying that “some individuals in the UK are always eager to fabricate baseless ‘espionage’ stories aimed at China.”

“Its purpose is to defame China and disrupt normal exchanges between Chinese and British staff,” an embassy spokesperson said.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman banned H6 in the UK in March 2023.

He then took his case to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a court created to consider appeals against decisions to ban or expel someone from the country on national security or related grounds.

In it published rulingthe judges upheld Braverman’s decision.

The court was told H6 was invited to Prince Andrew’s birthday party in 2020 and was told he could act on his behalf when dealing with potential investors in China.

It is unclear how H6 approached the prince, but in November 2021 he was stopped and questioned by police officers at the UK border under powers to investigate suspicions of “hostile activity” by a foreign state.

During that stop, H6 handed over several electronic devices, including a cell phone.

What the agents found on them worried the MI5 security service so much that Braverman used his exceptional powers to ban H6 in the country.

In a letter found on one of his devices, Dominic Hampshire, an adviser to Prince Andrew, told H6: “Outside of (the prince’s) closest internal confidants, you sit at the top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”

Mr Hampshire adds: “Under his direction, we found a way to get relevant people in and out of Windsor House without anyone noticing.”

The excerpt from the letter included in the ruling does not give any further details about who the “relevant persons” were.

Hampshire also confirmed to H6 that he could act on Prince Andrew’s behalf in discussions “with potential partners and investors in China.”

A document was also found listing the “main talking points” for a call with Prince Andrew.

It says: “IMPORTANT: Manage expectations. It is very important not to set expectations ‘too high’ – you are in a desperate situation and will hold on to anything.”

The court assessed that this meant that H6 was in a position to “generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent UK figures that could be exploited for the purposes of political interference by the Chinese state”.

The judges said H6 had gained an “unusual degree of trust from a senior member of the Royal Family who was willing to enter into commercial activities with him”.

They added that the relationship had developed at a time when the prince was “under considerable pressure” which “could make him vulnerable to the abuse of that kind of influence”.

The prince has faced increasing scrutiny since late 2019 over his friendship with the late American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which included his infamous Newsnight interview in November that year.

He he stepped away from his royal duties in November 2019 and since then the prince has been dogged by questions about his trial and his finances.

Questions arose over the prince’s finances after he reached a settlement, believed to run into millions, in a civil sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers. The prince has always denied attacking Mrs. Giuffre.

Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue, told BBC News that Chinese state agents would typically seek to target “members of the House of Lords or prominent businessmen, or people who have a voice in the community.”

He added that it was “quite ambitious” to target a royal and “quite reckless for a member of the Royal Family to allow themselves to be targeted”.

Security chiefs feared that Beijing was trying to carry out an “elite capture” operation to influence the Duke of York because of the pressure he was under, a tactic that aims to appoint high-profile people to companies, centers of Chinese studies or universities.

H6 was later informed that UK authorities believed he was associated with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tasked with carrying out influence operations.

The ruling said that MI5 director general Ken McCallum had expressed concern about the threat posed to the UK by China’s political interference and that bodies such as the UFWD were “mounting patient, well-funded and deceptive campaigns to buy and exercise influence”.

The Home Office said it believed H6 had been involved in covert and deceptive activities on behalf of the CCP and that his relationship with Prince Andrew could be used for political interference.

Suella Braverman has now called for H6 to lose his anonymity, telling the Daily Telegraph that “revealing this person’s identity will have a deterrent effect.”