Ex-Prince Andrew called to testify in civil case, 1st royal in 176 years to get witness summons

LONDON (AP) — The former Prince Andrew has been called to testify as a witness in a civil fraud trial, marking what is believed to be the first time in more than 150 years that a member of the royal family has received a witness summons, British media reported on Wednesday.

The summons comes after a judge at the High Court in London gave the green light last month for the former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, to be called to testify about payments he allegedly received from the parties in the case. Mountbatten-Windsor may apply to have the summons set aside, so there is no guarantee he will testify.

The lawsuit was filed by Turkish national Nebahat Evyap Isbilen, who alleges that her former adviser Selman Turk misappropriated tens of millions of pounds of her money. As part of the case, she says Turk misled her about a 750,000-pound ($1 million) payment he arranged for her to make to Mountbatten-Windsor in 2019.

Mountbatten-Windsor, a younger brother of King Charles III, repaid the money in 2021 and he is not a party to the suit.

Turk claims that Isbilen authorized the payment in hopes that Mountbatten-Windsor might be able to use his connections to help her husband, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 2015. Isbilen alleges that her husband is the victim of political persecution.

Isbilen’s attorneys said last month that they believed this would be the first time since 1870 that a member of the royal family was subject to a witness summons.

At that time, the future King Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, was called to testify in the divorce case brought by Charles Mordaunt, a baronet and member of Parliament. The prince accepted the summons and denied having improper relations with Mordaunt’s wife, Harriet Mordaunt.

Mountbatten-Windsor is facing his own legal troubles as several British police forces investigate his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein . British authorities began their inquiries after the U.S. Department of Justice released millions of pages of documents from its investigation of Epstein earlier this year.

Charles stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his princely title in late 2025 as he tried to shield the royal family from the scandal surrounding his brother’s relationship with Epstein.