New Delhi [India], February 2 (HBTV): The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday dismissed references to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2017 visit to Israel contained in an email purportedly included in the recently released Epstein files, describing them as baseless and contemptible.
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said reports had cited an email from the so-called Epstein files that mentioned the Prime Minister and his official visit to Israel. ‘Beyond the fact of the Prime Minister’s official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt,’ he said.
Earlier, the Congress sought to raise questions over the Prime Minister being named in a purported email forming part of documents released from the Epstein estate.
Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged, ‘That India’s Prime Minister could have a proximity to such a disgraced figure raises serious questions of judgment, transparency and diplomatic propriety. It is now clear that the Prime Minister had a direct unexplained association with Jeffrey Epstein whose infamous list of elite clients has wreaked havoc ever since the Epstein files began to be released.’
The United States Department of Justice on Friday, local time, released a large batch of investigative material linked to late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, making public more than three million pages of records, along with over 2,000 videos and around 1,80,000 images.
Announcing the disclosures at a news conference, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the release fulfilled a transparency mandate passed by Congress last year. ‘Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,’ he said.
Epstein died by apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after being indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. He had earlier served 13 months in custody in Florida following a controversial plea deal in 2008. (ANI)