The son of Mette-Marit, Norway’s crown princess, has been indicted on a number of costs, together with rape, following his arrest in November 2024.
Oslo state lawyer Sturla Henriksbø stated Marius Borg Høiby might resist 10 years in jail if convicted. The 32 counts embody rape, abuse in a detailed relationship towards a former associate and acts of violence towards one other. Different costs embody making loss of life threats and site visitors violations.
“These are very critical acts that may depart lasting scars and destroy lives,” the prosecutor stated.
“The truth that Marius Borg Høiby is a member of the royal household ought to, after all, not imply that he needs to be handled extra calmly or extra severely than if comparable acts had been dedicated by others,” Henriksbø added.
Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess and stepson of the inheritor to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been underneath scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary costs of bodily hurt and prison harm.
He’s at present free pending trial, and Henriksbø stated there’s at present no cause to arrest and jail him. The Norwegian prosecutors’ workplace estimates that the trial might start in mid-January and take round six weeks.
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Høiby was born earlier than the princess’s 2001 marriage to the crown prince and due to this fact doesn’t maintain a royal title or perform official duties. His defence crew has stated that he takes the accusations severely however doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in many of the instances, significantly these concerning sexual abuse and violence.
The royal palace stated that it was as much as the courts to deal with the case and attain a choice, and it had nothing so as to add past that.
Høiby was arrested on suspicion of rape final November. Police stated in a press release that he was accused of finishing up a “sexual act with out intercourse” on a sufferer “stated to have been unable to withstand the act.”
The accuser is a girl in her 20s who didn’t know Høiby earlier than she met him on the day of the alleged incident, her lawyer Hege Salomon informed CNN. She was not in a relationship with him.
At a detention listening to at Oslo District Court docket in November 2024, police prosecutor Andreas Kruszewski requested that Høiby stay in custody for an extra two weeks after one other rape allegation was reported.
The decide within the case ordered one week of remand for the embattled member of Norway’s royal household.
“Marius is going through critical accusations, which the police and the judiciary will cope with. … I’m satisfied they are going to do job,” Prince Haakon informed public broadcaster NRK earlier than the detention order. “We as a household and as dad and mom have, after all, been very involved that Marius ought to get assist.”
Previous to that arrest, Høiby had additionally been charged with one rely of “abuse in shut relationships,” violating a restraining order and driving with out a legitimate driver’s licence, police stated.
Police stated Høiby was taken into custody on Aug. 4, 2024, after an incident on the Oslo residence of a girl he was in a relationship with. Police say they discovered a knife caught in one of many partitions of the lady’s bed room. He was accused of inflicting her bodily hurt.
He apologized for the occasions main as much as his August arrest in a assertion to NRK on the time, blaming it on “being intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine after an argument” and “a number of psychological sicknesses,” for which he deliberate to “resume therapy.”
— With information from International Information’ Michelle Butterfield and The Related Press
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