Mandelson arrested to stop him fleeing Britain
Met Police reportedly tipped off that disgraced Labour peer may have been planning to move abroad
Lord Mandelson was arrested after police were warned that he was about to flee the country.
Metropolitan Police officers detained the former Labour Cabinet ministeron Monday afternoon after receiving a tip that he was about to move to the British Virgin Islands.
Lord Mandelson was forced to surrender his passport as part of his bail conditions, following seven hours of police questioning.
A spokesperson for Lord Forsyth of Drumlean denied claims that the Lord Speaker was responsible for the tip-off.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, lawyers for Lord Mandelson described allegations that he was planning to flee the country as “baseless”.
Police launched an investigation into the disgraced peer three weeks ago after it emerged that he appeared to have leaked sensitive government documents to Jeffrey Epstein while serving as business secretary in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet.
The arrest was another blow for Sir Keir Starmer, whose judgment has been questioned over the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US.
On Tuesday, officials confirmed they would release documents related to Lord Mandelson’s work in government and appointment as ambassador early next month.
However, The Telegraph can reveal that ministers will have the final sayover which files will be released, despite promises that the public would be given “maximum transparency”.
‘Clear operational reasons’ for arrest
Lord Mandelson’s homes in London and Wiltshire were raided by officersfrom the Met’s central specialist crime team earlier this month, with documents and computer equipment seized.
The Telegraph understands the force had been planning to interview the former minister by appointment rather than arrest him, but that decision changed suddenly on Monday when detectives became concerned that he could be a flight risk.
A Scotland Yard source said the arrest followed “new intelligence” and was made for “clear operational reasons”.
A spokesman for Lord Mandelson said there was no truth in the suggestion he was planning to leave the UK.
In a statement, the spokesman said: “Peter Mandelson was arrested despite an agreement with the police that he would attend an interview next month on a voluntary basis.
“The arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad. There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion. We have asked the MPS for the evidence relied upon to justify the arrest.
“Peter Mandelson’s overriding priority is to cooperate with the police investigation, as he has done throughout this process, and to clear his name.”
Peer discussed global property portfolio
It is unclear why Lord Mandelson would flee to the British Virgin Islands, a British Overseas Territory and a signatory to the Extradition Act 2003.
A tranche of Epstein’s emails, released by the US department of justice last month, show the Labour peer was in discussions with the shamed financier about buying a portfolio of properties around the world, including in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro.
Lord Mandelson was business secretary under Mr Brown between October 2008 and May 2010. He retained a close friendship with Epstein, even after the financier had been convicted for soliciting a teenage girl for sex.
The emails showed that their friendship spanned much of Lord Mandelson’s time in public life and allegedly included conversations about confidential government decisions.
The damaging disclosures forced him to renounce his peerage and led to the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, who pushed for Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador.
Among the documents he allegedly shared with Epstein were plans for a multibillion-pound EU bailout during the financial crash and details of a planned government sale of land and property.
Documents released last month also suggest Lord Mandelson and his husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, received cash payments from Epsteinworth more than £60,000. He has said he has no memory or record of the payments.
Separate documents, relating to Lord Mandelson’s work in government and appointment as US ambassador, are set to be released by the Government early next month.
They are expected to include exchanges with ministers and senior officials that the Government may wish to redact to avoid embarrassment.
Whitewash fears over Mandelson files
Whitehall sources confirmed that the intelligence and security committee(ISC), an independent group of MPs and peers overseeing the redaction of the files, would not be allowed to overrule the Government.
The Telegraph understands that if the committee disagrees with a redaction proposed by the Cabinet Office and the dispute cannot be resolved, it can only refer the Government to another parliamentary committee in an attempt to force the information to be released.
The ISC, established to scrutinise the intelligence services, has previously complained about its lack of independence from the Government because it relies on legal and secretarial assistance from civil servants.
Its members wrote to ministers last year to complain about the “control exerted over the committee’s staff and resourcing by the Cabinet Office”, which “self-evidently, should not be the case”. It said: “An oversight body should not sit within, and be beholden to, an organisation which it oversees.”
A former senior civil servant familiar with the committee’s work said the redaction of the Mandelson files was “not, in any meaningful sense, an independent process”.
They told The Telegraph: “The Government will decide what is redacted, and the ISC, which has complained for years about the interference of the Cabinet Office in its work, will be in practice reliant on seconded civil servants who ultimately answer to the Cabinet Secretary.
“If large sections are redacted or tightly controlled, critics will argue that the system has protected itself. Without visible transparency, this risks being seen as a highly managed exercise in institutional and political self-preservation.”
On Tuesday, MPs waved through a Liberal Democrat motion demanding the release of files about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment and work as a trade envoy.
But Downing Street said it would not publish every file relating to the former prince because certain documents could jeopardise the police investigation into his alleged misconduct.
The documents could show the extent of Lord Mandelson’s role in the appointment, as well as details of the due diligence process.
A spokesperson for the Lord Speaker said: “Any suggestion at all that the Lord Speaker received information about Lord Mandelson’s movements or communicated any such information to the Metropolitan Police Service is entirely false and without foundation.”
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
