Ghislaine Maxwell has filed a petition asking a US federal judge to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and free her from prison, claiming “substantial new evidence”.

The disgraced British socialite and ex-girlfriend of the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.

In the petition, Maxwell’s lawyers argue that information which would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld, and that false testimony was presented to the jury.

They say the cumulative effect is a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

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Maxwell was jailed in 2022 for sex trafficking after recruiting young girls for Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Her latest legal bid for freedom came on Wednesday, two days ahead of the deadline for the release of the Epstein files – which include all material related to civil and criminal cases involving Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

Maxwell’s lawyers have claimed that releasing the files – required after US President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Transparency Act – would harm her bid for a retrial.

The argument came in a letter from her legal team to a New York judge, which Sky News saw at the start of December. The lawyers argued the release of “grand jury materials from her case, which contain untested and unproven allegations” would “foreclose the possibility of a fair retrial”.

The letter also reveals the plan for the habeas corpus petition, filed this week.

The petition, filed in a Manhattan federal court, argues: “Since the conclusion of [Maxwell’s] trial, substantial new evidence has emerged from related civil actions, government disclosures, investigative reports, and documents demonstrating constitutional violations that undermined the fairness of her proceeding.

“In the light of the full evidentiary record, no reasonable juror would have convicted her.”

It is unclear what new material the lawyers are referring to.

In October, the US Supreme Court rejected Maxwell’s attempts to appeal against her sentence, meaning the petition or a presidential pardon from Mr Trump are her only chances at being freed before her projected release date in 2037.

Earlier in December a New York judge gave the go ahead for the US Department of Justice to publish material from Maxwell’s sex trafficking case, as part of the Epstein files release.

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Several dozen photos related to Epstein have already been released by Democrats in the US, ahead of this week’s deadline for the release of the full files which are expected to include thousands of pages of material.

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Last Friday, images of Mr Trump, Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and others were shared by the Democrats on social media.

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There was no suggestion that the pictures implied any wrongdoing. The US president, Mr Bannon, Mr Clinton and the former prince have all denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

Other images included sex toys and condoms with Mr Trump’s likeness.

China is to tax contraception for the first time in more than three decades in a move aligned with efforts to get more families to have children.

Contraceptive drugs and products such as condoms will no longer be exempt from China’s 13% value added tax from January 1, the country’s newest tax laws have revealed.

The move comes as the country’s birth rate declines. In 2024, 9.5 million babies were born in China, about one-third fewer than the 14.7 million born in 2019, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

As deaths have outpaced births in China, India overtook it as the world’s most populous country in 2023.

But the tax change has been ridiculed on on Chinese social media by people who have joked that they would be fools not to know that raising a child is more expensive than using condoms, even if they are taxed.

“That’s a really ruthless move,” said Hu Lingling, mother of a 5-year-old who said she is determined not to have another child. She said she would “lead the way in abstinence” as a rebel.

“It is also hilarious, especially compared to forced abortions during the family planning era,” she said.

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More seriously, experts are raising concerns over potential increases in unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases due to higher costs for contraceptives.

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In previous decades China’s huge population growth prompted the ruling Communist Party to ban couples from having more than one child in a rule that enforced from about 1980 until 2015, through fines and other penalties.

In some cases women underwent forced abortions and children born over the one child limit were deprived of an identification number, effectively making them non-citizens.

The government raised the birth limit to two children in 2015. Then, as China’s population began to peak and then fall, it was lifted to three children in 2021. Contraception has previously been actively encouraged and easily accessed, sometimes for free.

Director of the University of Virginia’s Demographics Research Group, Qian Cai said: “Higher prices may reduce access to contraceptives among economically disadvantaged populations, potentially leading to increases in unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Those outcomes could, in turn, lead to more abortions and higher health-care costs.”

She also said the new taxes would have a “very limited” effect on reproductive decisions.

“For couples who do not want children or do not want additional children, a 13% tax on contraceptives is unlikely to influence their reproductive decisions, especially when weighed against the far higher costs of raising a child,” she said.

But University of Wisconsin-Madison senior scientist Yi Fuxian said imposing the tax was “only logical”.

“They used to control the population, but now they are encouraging people to have more babies; it is a return to normal methods to make these products ordinary commodities,” he said.

EU leaders will meet in Brussels today to try to agree the release of €210bn (£184bn) to help fund Ukraine’s war with Russia.

The money, which comes from Russian assets frozen after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is mostly held in the Belgian-headquartered clearing house, Euroclear.

The money is seen as vital to Ukraine’s ability to keep fighting, because the country faces bankruptcy in early 2026 if it doesn’t receive more international assistance. That means Kyiv would no longer be able to pay soldiers, police and civil servants or buy weapons to defend itself.

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Last night, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is expected to brief the EU leaders today, wrote on X: “The result Europe produces – must make Russia feel that its desire to continue the war next year is pointless, because Ukraine will have support. This rests entirely with Europe.”

The Belgian government has so far prevented the move amid fears it will expose the small country to Russian legal action in the future.

The EU is racing to find solutions to Belgium‘s concerns, including passing an emergency bill that secures the sanctions against Russia indefinitely, superseding the need to renew them every six months and thereby insulating it from veto votes from Russian-leaning EU member states like Hungary and Slovakia.

Belgium also wants guarantees that all EU members will share any financial cost of Russian action against it.

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Why the push to use Russian assets?

The US, which has so far given billions of dollars to Kyiv, is losing interest under Donald Trump and can no longer be relied upon for financial support.

Previously, the EU had been giving the interest generated from the frozen assets to Ukraine, but was worried it might destabilise the Eurozone economy if it touched the assets itself.

That has changed, however, as Ukraine’s need has become more acute and fears over Russia’s wider imperialist ambitions have grown in recent months.

This unlocking of seized Russian assets is also being seen as a way to buy Brussels more leverage in peace negotiations, as well as reducing Kyiv’s dependency on Washington.

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has been leading the campaign to release the funds, warned that “Europe would be severely damaged for years” if they fail to pass the vote and “this step is not about prolonging the war but about bringing the war to an end as soon as possible”.

In short, the consequences of using the frozen assets are now considered less risky than the consequences of not taking this action.

What’s at stake?

Trump wanted the money to be invested in two US investment funds, something the EU rejects. The US president has recently been scathing of European leaders, and the EU sees Thursday’s meeting as an opportunity to show its strength and unity.

In theory, the EU could pass the policy by majority vote, thereby sidelining the Belgian government, but officials are reluctant to go down this path for fear of alienating Belgium and causing a diplomatic rift in the alliance.

Much is riding on the meeting. If the EU fails to pass the vote, its credibility will take a severe blow. It will likely become even more irrelevant in peace talks, and Vladimir Putin might look to take advantage of a divided Europe.