Ghislaine Maxwell held German-issued international press card

ANKARA

Ghislaine Maxwell, a close associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, held an international press card issued in Germany, media reports said on Saturday.

The documents included in recently released US investigation files, made public by the US Justice Department last week, contain a copy of a press identification card issued by the International Federation of Journalists, listing Maxwell’s affiliation as “dju in ver.di, Germany,” a reference to the German Union of Journalists, according to Der Spiegel.

The document has prompted questions because the German Union of Journalists issues international press cards only to members who can demonstrate active professional journalistic work.

Maxwell is not known to have worked as a journalist, nor to have carried out journalistic activity in Germany.

Maxwell is a central figure in the abuse case involving US financier Jeffrey Epstein.

She was convicted by a US court of crimes, including sex trafficking, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

According to the files, the credit-card-sized press card bears a passport photograph of Maxwell and was issued in the name Marion Ghislaine Noelle Maxwell, with a validity date of Sept. 15, 2017.

The press card appears in US investigative records because Maxwell allegedly used it as identification at a UPS branch in Boston. A US Postal Service form dated April 9, 2018, shows she presented the press card along with a British driver’s license to rent a post office box.

FBI investigators later seized copies of both documents in July 2019, around the time of Epstein’s arrest.

A representative of the German Union of Journalists said the organization does not disclose membership details and that applications are reviewed carefully, but related records are routinely destroyed after their retention period for data protection reasons.