ISTANBUL

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said Wednesday that Britain’s Prince Andrew should face prosecution for alleged crimes on US soil, referring to his links to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“So when do we prosecute Prince Andrew for potential crimes on US soil? Seems like the right next step (after we release the files),” Mace wrote on her government account on the US social media company X’s platform.

In a separate post on her personal account, she described a “cold dark cell” and Prince Andrew in handcuffs, saying it “sends the right message.”

Prince Andrew was publicly linked to Epstein’s case in 2011, when Virginia Giuffre, a survivor of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, accused the royal of abusing her when she was 17 after being trafficked by Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Andrew denied the allegations but reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in 2022.

Giuffre, who became a leading voice in the Epstein case, died by suicide in April this year at the age of 41.

Mace recently participated in a closed-door session with Epstein’s victims at the Capitol but left early after experiencing a panic attack.

“As a recent (sexual assault) survivor (not even two years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories,” she later explained.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California have proposed a bipartisan measure to force a House vote to release all remaining Epstein files.

On Tuesday, the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 33,000 pages of records provided by the Department of Justice.

Democrats on the Oversight Committee criticized the release, saying nearly all of the documents were already public.

“To the American people — don’t let this fool you,” they said.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. He had previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution.