A panel of independent experts appointed by the United Nations human rights council has said that the millions of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case in the U.S. Justice Department suggest a “global criminal enterprise” carried out crimes that meet the threshold of crimes against humanity.
The experts said the allegations contained in the files require an independent, thorough and impartial investigation, and said inquiries should also be launched into how it was possible for such crimes to be committed for so long.
The UN experts also raised concerns about “serious compliance failures and botched redactions” that exposed sensitive information of some of the 1,200 victims in the files.
The experts in this council spoke of the “grave nature” regarding the scale of the atrocities committed against a backdrop of supremacist beliefs, racism, corruption and extreme misogyny. The crimes showed a commodification and dehumanization of women and girls.
“So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity,” they said in a statement.