Paul KirbyDigital publisher Europe
Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was convicted of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.
The three judges in courtroom 250 of the Oslo District Court cleared him of two other counts of rape, but found him guilty of many of the other offenses for which he had been accused.
Høiby was not present in court for the verdict, but joined the session via video link.
Prosecutors had requested that Høiby be sentenced to seven years and seven months in prison. His lawyers asked for a sentence of less than 18 months and can appeal the verdict.
Marius Borg Høiby’s mother married into the royal family when he was four years old, and although he grew up within the family, he is not a royal figure himself.
Mette-Marit is very ill with a form of pulmonary fibrosis and was recently put on a lung transplant list. His son’s lawyers have repeatedly requested his release from prison so that he can spend time with his mother, whose health is deteriorating.
After the verdict, Høiby’s lawyer Petar Sekulic again asked the court for his release.
One of the trial’s three judges, Judge Jon Sverdrup Efjestad, began the session early Monday with a summary of their findings, before launching into a 128-page decision explaining the verdict.
Høiby had denied all four counts of rape, but judges found him guilty of raping two women, including one on the crown prince’s estate in Skaugum in 2018 and another involving a woman in Oslo in 2024.
He was also convicted of abusing an ex-girlfriend, Norwegian influencer Nora Haukland.
However, he was cleared of two other rapes, involving a woman he met in an Oslo hotel in November 2024 and another he met while on vacation in the Lofoten Islands in 2023.
The case against Høiby involved six women, but only one of them was present in court to hear the verdict.
Prosecutors said she was either incapacitated or asleep when she was raped after a party in Oslo in March 2024 and after they had consensual sex.
Evidence that she was raped relied on videos Høiby filmed at the time, and during her testimony in February, the woman told the court she was asleep and would never have allowed this to happen.
The court recognized that the victim was unable to resist what happened.
All four rape charges involved women who were either asleep or incapacitated at the time.
Høiby was also convicted of several crimes, including abuse and reckless behavior towards a sixth woman in Oslo’s upscale Frogner neighborhood, in the apartment where he was arrested in August 2024.
The court ruled he must pay a total of 640,000 crowns (£50,000; €57,000) in compensation to four of the women, including Nora Haukland, the only woman the judges ruled could be named in the case.