Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been arrested on suspicion of rape. He was taken into custody on Monday in Oslo on a preliminary charge of having sexual intercourse with someone unconscious or unable to resist the act, CNN reported. Police specified that he is accused of carrying out a “sexual act without intercourse” on a victim “said to have been unable to resist the act.” Authorities have not disclosed when the alleged rape took place. 

The alleged victim, a woman in her 20s, didn’t know Marius Hoiby before meeting him on the day of the incident, according to her lawyer, Hege Salomon. She also wasn’t in a romantic relationship with Hoiby.

Hoiby pleaded not guilty to the charge, and was cooperating with the police and wanted to explain himself, his defence attorney Oyvind Bratlien told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the alleged victim’s lawyer, Hege Salomon, said that the woman “is having a hard time” and said that police had brought the case, not her client.

“We do not have a comment on this case and direct all questions to police and attorney for Marius Borg Hoiby,” Simen Sund, Communications Advisor for the Royal Palace, told NBC News.

This isn’t Hoiby’s first run-in with the law as he was previously detained in August for bodily harm and criminal damage. He was arrested again in September for allegedly violating a restraining order.

In August, he issued a statement saying he had “struggled with substance abuse for a long time”. He said he would “resume” treatment for the problem and “take it very seriously”.

Notably, Hoiby was born in 1997 from a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s 2001 marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne. He and his step-siblings — Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20 and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18 — were raised together by Mette-Marit and Haakon.

Norwegian police said on Saturday that the 27-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit had been arrested for violating a restraining order.

Marius Borg Hoiby was initially detained on August 4 following a night-time row at a woman’s apartment in Oslo and accused of causing bodily harm to the resident, with whom he was having a relationship.

Norwegian media reports said police found a knife stuck into one of the walls of the woman’s bedroom at the time.

“At the beginning of September, police received information that Marius Borg Hoiby had, on several occasions, made unwanted contact with the woman, who has the status of victim in the incident,” police said in a statement on Saturday.

They “filed a report for reckless behaviour and imposed a restraining order on Hoiby”, it said.

They subsequently “received information that Hoiby had violated the restraining order” and he was rearrested late on Friday due to the “risk of recurrence”.

Police now suspect Hoiby of crimes against three other victims — domestic abuse of two women and threats to another person.

Hoiby’s lawyer Oyvind Bratlien said his client denied the allegations.

“In my 17 years as a defence lawyer, I have never experienced or heard of an arrest on such a flimsy factual and legal basis,” Bratlien told broadcaster NRK.

Hoiby was born in 1997 from a relationship prior to Mette-Marit’s 2001 marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne.

He and his step-siblings — Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20 and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18 — were raised together by Mette-Marit and Haakon.

Unlike them, he has no official public role.
 

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