Norwegian crown princess’s son found guilty of two counts of rape
Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been convicted on two rape charges and sentenced to four years in prison by the Oslo District Court.
A three-judge panel found Høiby guilty of raping two women but acquitted him of two other rape charges. He was also convicted on several additional offences, including domestic abuse and causing serious bodily harm to former partners.
Høiby, who did not attend court in person due to unspecified health reasons, participated in the proceedings via video link. Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of seven years and seven months, while his defence team argued for a reduced sentence of 18 months. His lawyers have indicated that an appeal is likely.
Although Høiby is not a member of the Norwegian royal family, his case has attracted significant public attention because he was raised within the royal household after his mother married Crown Prince Haakon when he was a child. The Norwegian royal palace has declined to comment on the verdict.
The case involved allegations from six women. The court found Høiby guilty of raping one woman at the Crown Prince’s Skaugum estate in 2018 and another woman in Oslo in 2024. Judges concluded that both victims were asleep or otherwise unable to resist at the time of the assaults.
The court also convicted him of abusing former partner and influencer Nora Haukland, as well as inflicting serious injuries on another former girlfriend. However, he was acquitted of two additional rape allegations relating to incidents that allegedly occurred in Oslo in 2024 and in the Lofoten Islands in 2023.
According to court findings, several of the allegations were supported by videos discovered on Høiby’s phone following his arrest in August 2024. The women involved were reportedly unaware of the incidents until investigators uncovered the recordings.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered Høiby to pay a total of 640,000 Norwegian kroner in compensation to four of the women involved in the case.
The verdict comes at a difficult time for the royal family, particularly Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who is currently awaiting a lung transplant after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Høiby’s legal team had previously sought his release from custody to allow him to spend time with his mother because of her deteriorating health.
Legal representatives are expected to decide in the coming days whether to formally appeal the conviction and sentence. Meanwhile, observers say the case has intensified scrutiny of Norway’s royal household, although public attention has increasingly shifted toward the Crown Princess’s health condition.
Source: BBC
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