Queen's University Belfast cuts ties with US politician Mitchell over Epstein files
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George Mitchell speaking during the three-day international conference at Queen's University Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Picture date: Monday April 17, 2023. Niall Carson/Pool via REUTERS
(Corrects reporter name in byline and reporting credit)
By Amanda Ferguson and Muvija M
BELFAST, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Queen's University Belfast on Monday cut ties with former U.S. Senator George Mitchell over his links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, saying it was no longer appropriate to remain associated with the key figure in the Northern Ireland peace deal.
The university said its decision followed new information on Mitchell released in the latest trove of millions of files linked to late convicted sex offender Epstein by the U.S. Justice Department last Friday.
The university plans to remove Mitchell's name from the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and to remove the bust commemorating him from its campus, it said in a statement.
"While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the University has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name," the university said.
Reuters could not immediately reach Mitchell for a comment, and his namesake think tank, the Maine-based Mitchell Institute, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
References to "George Mitchell" in the Justice Department's Epstein library included an email from 2013 titled "Appt w/Senator George Mitchell" and another in 2010 carrying the message "George Mitchell returned your phone call".
The emails were sent after Epstein was jailed in 2008 for soliciting paid sex from a minor. He died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
BBC News cited a spokesperson for 92-year-old Mitchell as saying he never met, spoken to or had any contact with Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre or any underage women. The British broadcaster said the statement was issued before the university's move.
Separately, the non-profit US-Ireland Alliance said its board had unanimously agreed that its George J. Mitchell Scholarship program - which sends American students to Ireland and Northern Ireland for a year of graduate study - should no longer bear his name, also citing the newly released Epstein files.
Mitchell chaired the 1998 talks between Irish nationalists seeking a united Ireland and pro-British unionists, which culminated in the Good Friday Agreement that largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict in which 3,600 died.
(Reporting by Amanda Ferguson in Belfast and Muvija M in London, additional reporting by Andy Sullivan and Conor Humphries, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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