Prince Harry "ineligible" for US visa? The American justice examined Tuesday the appeal of a conservative association that wants to know more about the visa granted to Prince Harry although he has admitted to having used drugs in the United States.
Far from the London court where the Duke of Sussex testified that same day about the "hostility" of the press towards him, a federal judge in Washington devoted a hearing to a petition filed by the Heritage Foundation, precisely in the name of "media interest".
This organization very influential in conservative circles demands, under freedom of information laws, the migration file of the prince who, falling out with the British royal family, moved to California in 2020 with his American wife Meghan Markle.
"I was offered a line, I've taken a few more since"
The youngest son of King Charles III "publicly admitted (...) a number of drug offenses in the U.S. and abroad," she said in her appeal. However, she adds, "U.S. law normally makes such people ineligible for entry" into the country.
The case concerns Prince Harry "but focuses on the Department of Homeland Security and its respect for the law," argued his lawyer Samuel Dewey before Judge Carl Nichols. It is a subject that "arouses a very wide media interest", he added. "A person's visa is... confidential," Department of Homeland Security lawyer John Bardo told him.
The request does not violate the prince's privacy since he "talked and wrote a lot" about his drug use, Samuel Dewey said outside court. In his memoirs, published in January, the prince admitted to using cannabis, psychotropic drugs and cocaine in the UK, Lesotho and the US.
In 2002, "in someone's country house, during a weekend of hunting, I was offered a line, I have taken a few others since," he writes in "The Deputy", where he also says he "swallowed" hallucinogenic mushrooms at a party in Los Angeles in 2016.
"Psychedelic drugs have also done me some good. I took it for fun for several years (...) then for therapeutic, medical purposes, "he adds, presenting himself as a young "unhappy" ready to try everything to "change the status quo".
Documents requested
However, the "Heritage Foundation" notes that other personalities, including the footballer Maradona or the singer Amy Winehouse, have been refused entry on American soil because of their drug use.
In particular, she wants access to the questionnaire to fill out to enter the United States, where each candidate must say if he or she has ever used drugs. So far, it has been refused by three entities of the ministry, but has not yet received a response from the management of the latter.
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While acknowledging that these documents "may be of some public interest," the government said the US mainstream media had not looked into the prince's legal status and there was no urgency to act.
After very technical debates, Judge Carl Nichols asked the administration to see if the department's management could make a decision or expedite the processing of the request by next Tuesday. Otherwise, "I will make a decision," he said, while stressing that it would not focus at this stage on the merits of the case, but on the need to accelerate the examination of the request for documents.
