Son of Norway’s crown princess appears in court in rape case

By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) – The son of Norway’s crown princess appeared in court on Wednesday to challenge a police request to place him in preventive detention while they investigate an accusation of rape made against him.

Police on Monday detained Marius Borg Hoiby, 27, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson to Crown Prince Haakon, on suspicion of having had a sexual encounter “with someone who is unconscious or for other reasons unable to resist the act”.

The accusation of rape concerned a “sexual encounter without intercourse”, police said in a statement, without elaborating.

Hoiby’s lawyer, Oeyvind Bratlien, told Reuters that his client was innocent and was opposed to being held in preventive detention.

The hearing is taking place behind closed doors, the court decided.

Hoiby does not have a royal title and is outside the line of royal succession.

Police have said Hoiby also faces accusations of having used violence against other women and drug use.

On Aug. 4 police named Hoiby as a suspect of physical assault against a woman with whom he had been in a relationship.

Hoiby in a later statement to the media admitted to causing her bodily harm while he was under the influence of cocaine and alcohol and of damaging her apartment. Hoiby said he regretted his acts.

Crown Prince Haakon said on Tuesday the case had had an impact on everyone in the family.

“These are serious allegations Marius now faces, and we are of course thinking of all those affected,” Haakon told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK while he was on an official visit to Jamaica.

The police investigation is still ongoing, and no trial date has been set.

The case has cast a spotlight on domestic violence in a country that prides itself on a high degree of gender equality but where one in ten women in an academic study last year said they had been subject to severe harm at the hands of a partner.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in August the problems that had come to light in the royal family were similar to what many others in Norway had to contend with, and that support for the monarchy in his view remained firm.

Hoiby is the older half-brother of Princess Ingrid Alexandra, who is second in line to the throne after her father, and of Prince Sverre Magnus, who is third in line.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Gareth Jones)