NEWS ANALYSIS: Flags few, canons roared at noon and the royal yacht was decorated on Tuesday, but it couldn’t have been a very happy 52nd birthday for Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit. Her son Marius was slapped just the day before with a 32-count indictment including four rapes and numerous charges of other violence against women, throwing the Norwegian royal family back into crisis mode.
The indictment against 28-year-old Marius Borg Høiby, the crown princess’ son from a relationship before she met Crown Prince Haakon, was even worse than expected. Police had forwarded 23 violations of the law to state prosecutors for review earlier this summer, including three alleged rapes. The indictment handed down on Monday was much more serious and extensive: Four rapes, several other violent assaults on former female partners, vandalism, disturbing the peace, making threats, failing to comply with police orders, reckless driving, violation of a restraining order and even filming of several women’s genitals while they slept. Much of the police evidence, in the form of photos and videos, was collected from Høiby’s own telephone.
Høiby has earlier admitted to a violent episode at a former girlfriend’s apartment in Oslo last August, and to dependency on drugs and alcohol. He still denies guilt on many of the other charges, including the rapes, and has not been taken back into custody. His defense attorneys call the indictment “serious,” claim Høiby has cooperated with police and was taking the indictment itself seriously. He faces a six-week-long trial that’s likely to start in January, and as much as 10 years in prison if found guilty on all counts.
“Violence in close relationships is extremely serious,” Norway’s State Prosecutor Sturla Henriksbø said after unveiling the indictment at a press conference in Oslo on Monday afternoon. “We know how living under such a regime can destroy lives.” He told newspaper Aftenposten that it “can create trauma that follows a person for the rest of their lives. It’s the same with rape, so this is an extremely serious indictment.”
It describes how one of Høiby’s alleged victims, former live-in partner Nora Haukland, was mishandled from the summer of 2022 to the fall of 2023 in Oslo, Asker (an Oslo suburb where the crown couple’s estate is located) Alta (Northern Norway), Barbados and other places. Høiby is accused of punching her in the face with a clenched fist, trying to choke her, and kicking her, in addition to “threatening behaviour and other offenses.” Høiby is further accused of trying to control which friends Haukland could meet, or pressuring her into declining various jobs.
Henriksbø insisted that Høiby, who’s been a member of the Royal Family since his mother married Crown Prince Haakon when he was just three years old, won’t be handled “any milder or any tougher” than others. His family relations have, Henriksbø acknowledged, prompted huge public interest in the case, “but will not have any effect on the indictment or eventual punishment.”
Several of the women involved, including one of their mothers, have earlier said they took up Høiby’s violent behaviour and drug use with his mother and Crown Prince Haakon, apparently to no avail. They royal couple have since called the case against Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s son “difficult” and “challenging” as have King Harald and Queen Sonja, but left it to the police, prosecutors and defense attorneys involved to sort it out. Staff at the Royal Palace had no further comment on the indictment, saying it was now “up to the courts to handle this case and reach a decision.”
On Tuesday Crown Prince Haakon was surrounded by reporters during an appearance at an industrial conference in Trondheim. He still wouldn’t comment on his step-son’s indictment in any detail. “Now it’s of course been clarified what’s in the indictment, so now it will proceed to the courts to decide how this will turn out in the end,” the crown prince told reporters. “Everyone involved in this case thinks it’s challenging and difficult.” He tried to keep smiling, saying that he and other family members must now just continue to carry on with their duties “in the best possible way.”
The crown prince declined to answer other questions, including one in which he was asked whether he and Crown Prince Mette-Marit had been told about her son’s violent behaviour. “When it comes to the case itself, I think there are others who are better suited to answer questions about it,” he said, before walking away.
Questions are also flying, meanwhile, among commentators, royal experts and many others over what went wrong with Høiby and why his violence wasn’t addressed. “The indictment against Marius Borg Høiby paints a picture of systematic assaults,” wrote Eva Grinde in newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) on Tuesday, even “a serial offender.” One of his latest alleged assaults occurred in November 2024, she noted, not long after he was first arrested in August.
“But what can the royals say and do?” Grinde wrote. “They’re clearly in a family crisis, but not just that. This family is not like all others. The royals make up our constitutional heads of government and should function.” Several other commentators are once again wondering whether Norway’s monarchy will survive this crisis that affects far more than the royal family itself.
Grinde, like many others, noted how Høiby “has been without a job for long periods” and “lives indirectly off the crown couple’s income that’s financed by the taxpayers. We can soon have a queen whose son is sitting in jail.” Grinde thinks Norwegians’ attachment or devotion to the monarchy “will depend on whether Mette-Marit and Haakon as a royal couple will eventually be able to put words on this crisis.” Mette-Marit in particular was fiercely defensive of her children while they were growing up, constantly trying to control press coverage and shield them, especially Marius, from the media glare, even when they sought it themselves.
Høiby himself has admitted to drug and alcohol use, and was believed to have been in rehab, but there no answers over any results. Some of his earlier girlfriends and alleged victims have voiced anger in recent months that Høiby has continued to party and travel since his arrests last autumn, to destinations including Cannes and, reports magazine Se og Hør, most recently Portugal with Crown Prince Haakon and his half-brother Prince Sverre Magnus. Høiby’s diplomatic passport was reportedly revoked earlier this year, but he still has a regular passport. Aftenposten reported that when his indictment was being handed down on Monday, he was seen riding off on a motorcycle from an apartment in Oslo’s Frogner district, where he’s now believed to be living.
The royal family’s greatest challenge will come in January, when Høiby’s trial begins. It remained unclear whether other members of the royal family will be called in to testify. Family members often are in other cases of domestic violence.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newsinenglish.no ’
