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Analysis

Prince Andrew and Anne Sacoolas: Could there be a high-level swap?

Some of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers and the family of Harry Dunn join forces in their calls over the Duke of York and Ms Sacoolas.

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Image: Could Prince Andrew be at the centre of a high-level swap?
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Give us your prince and we'll hand over the spy's wife.

It's a nice line but it's not what Harry Dunn's family and lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein's victims were asking for in New York.

That may be how the idea has been couched in the British tabloid press that has been floating the prospect of a high profile swap for a little while now.

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Anne Sacoolas and Prince Andrew 'must co-operate' with law enforcement

When it was put to the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week, by a tabloid journalist, then it became a story.

So it was natural that both representatives for Harry Dunn's family and Jeffrey Epstein's victims felt they needed to address the proposition.

But they were not proposing a swap, they insisted.

Rather, they were pointing to what both cases have in common and to the principles of reciprocity and justice.

More on Harry Dunn

In both the Epstein affair and the tragedy of Harry Dunn the victims were young, said representatives of both.

And in both cases, authorities would like to speak to individuals currently residing on the other side of the Atlantic.

Harry Dunn presser
Image: Lawyers held a press conference to ask for Anne Sacoolas and Prince Andrew to speak to relevant authorities

Anne Sacoolas left the UK under cover of diplomatic immunity and is now living in the US. Her government has turned down a request for her extradition to the UK to answer charges arising from the road traffic accident that killed motorcyclist Harry Dunn.

His family's friend and spokesman Radd Seiger insisted once again that no one should be above the law.

Harry Dunn. Pic: Facebook
Image: Harry Dunn was killed outside an RAF base in Northamptonshire. Pic: Facebook

Prince Andrew has protested his innocence and insisted he has done nothing wrong, but American investigators would still like to ask him questions about his late friend Jeffrey Epstein.

A spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York says it has not had any success interviewing the prince.

Two very different people, two very different cases.

Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services' sex offender registry
Image: Jeffrey Epstein's victims are urging Prince Andrew to come forward

But the family of Harry Dunn and representatives of some of Epstein's victims say justice is justice - and both individuals have a duty to help authorities deliver it.

If that means crossing the Atlantic, then both Sacoolas and Prince Andrew should do so, they say.

They undoubtedly also want to keep their respective causes in the public eye and the news conference in New York certainly achieved that.

There is no question of a high-level swap. That is preposterous.

But just as Harry Dunn's family remains convinced Ms Sacoolas will eventually have no choice but to return to the UK and answer the charges against her, those supporting Epstein's victims insist the pressure on Prince Andrew to break his silence with investigators will eventually become impossible to resist.