Crown Princess’s son arrested for alleged assault before rape trial in Norway

BBC:

The son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been arrested by police on suspicion of assault, before he goes on trial in Oslo on Tuesday on 38 charges, including the rape of four women.

Marius Borg Høiby, 29, was remanded in custody for four weeks. Police said the latest allegations against him involved wielding a knife and violating a restraining order, and there was a risk of reoffending.

His arrest on Sunday is the fourth time he has been detained by police since August 2024, when he was accused of assaulting a woman he had been having a relationship with.

He has denied the most serious charges against him but admitted some of the more minor ones.

It is the latest scandal to beset the royal family.

Norwegians are also coming to terms with revelations that his mother corresponded for three years with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2014.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit admitted “poor judgement” as her extensive contacts with Epstein became clear. She expressed her “deep sympathy and solidarity with the victims of the abuses committed by Jeffrey Epstein” and said her contact with him was “simply embarrassing”.

It has emerged she stayed at his Florida home for four nights, while he was not there, and asked Epstein if it was “inappropriate” for a mother to suggest to a 15-year-old son wallpaper showing two naked women carrying a surfboard.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said he agreed with her admission of “poor judgement”, and although he did not go further, his implicit criticism of her actions is highly unusual.