Norway’s royal family is facing both criminal charges against the oldest son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and the upcoming controversial wedding of Princess Martha Louise to an American shaman. Many Norwegians were feeling sorry for their 87-year-old monarch, King Harald V, who wasn’t commenting on any of it.
The pending marriage of Princess Martha Louise and Durek Verret on August 31 was overshadowed by news last week that Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s son from a relationship before she met Crown Prince Haakon had been arrested and charged with both assault and vandalism last weekend. More than a week later he still hasn’t submitted to police questioning, but the 27-year-old Marius Borg Høiby finally issued a statement through state broadcaster NRK on Wednesday afternoon.
In it he admitted to having attacked a young woman he described as his kjæreste (girlfriend) and ravaged her apartment in Oslo’s affluent Frogner district in the early morning hours of August 4. The violent episode took place while he admitted to being under the influence of both alcohol and cocaine.
“He hasn’t formally declared being guilty of criminal charges, since he hasn’t undergone police questioning,” his defense attorney Øystein Bratlien wrote in a message to NRK, “but in reality, this is an acknowledgement of the charges filed against him.”
Høiby, son of the former Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby and Morten Borg, also claimed he has “several psychiatric ailments which mean that through my entire childhood and adult life, I have had and have challenges. I have struggled with drugs for a long time, and have been in treatment for that earlier. I will now return to treatment, and take it very seriously.”
He added that his drug use and diagnoses “don’t excuse what happened in an apartment in Frogner last weekend. I want to take responsibility for what I’ve done and will make a truthful statement to police.”
Høiby also apologized to both the woman he attacked and to his family. “I know that my actions have also affected you,” he wrote. He concluded his statement by repeating that the incident “never should have happened, and I take full responsibility for my actions.” He refused to be interviewed or to take any questions.
It’s thus been a rough week for the entire royal family, not just his victim and his mother, who had a history of wild partying herself before she met Crown Prince Haakon at a music festival in the late 1990s. She was part of the house party milieu in Oslo at the time, but formally and tearfully distanced herself from narcotics during a meeting with the press shortly before she and Haakon married in 2001.
The Royal Palace confirmed earlier this week that Mette-Marit had taken contact with her son’s victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified. Photos of her demolished apartment have already appeared in magazine Se og Hør, though, showing a smashed chandelier torn from the ceiling in her bedroom, broken glass and mirror fragments, smashed sunglasses and Iphone and even a knife stuck into the wall. It remained unclear who leaked the photos to the magazine, which was criticized by the victim’s lawyer for publishing them.
Se og Hør reported that Høiby’s victim “had a relation” to Høiby and “managed to get him out of her home” before calling a friend for help. The friend reportedly called police after arriving at the scene of Høiby’s violence and called police, who arrived quickly, secured technical evidence and briefly questioned the injured woman before she was taken to a local emergency hospital. She reportedly was held there for several hours under observation, with visible head injuries and an apparent concussion.
The victim’s lawyer, Mette Yvonne Larsen, told reporters on Wednesday that Høiby apparently had grabbed her client around the neck in a stranglehold, and hit her. Larsen said it was good Høiby admitted to the attack: “It’s perhaps the beginning of him doing something (about his problems), and she (her client) is glad about that,” Larsen said.
Høiby, who has been living on the crown couple’s royal estate at Skaugum west of Oslo, was arrested later last Sunday. He met police not on the estate but on the grounds of the elementary school he attended as a child, just across the road from the estate’s entry gate that’s always patrolled by royal guards. It’s unclear how Høiby had traveled out to Skaugum, a trip that can take around a half-hour by car.
Se og Hør reported that Høiby also called his victim after he returned to the house he uses on the estate property, and threatened her again on the phone. Police reportedly have a recording of the call, in which he allegedly threatened to burn her clothes and other items she’d left at his place.
Police had alerted the state intelligence service PST responsible for the crown couple’s body guards, but PST declined comment. Høiby reportedly was taken to the main police station in Oslo (sentral arresten) where he was finger-printed, photographed and tested for DNA and drugs, like all other crime suspects. He spent the night in what Norwegians call glattcelle, a small stripped-down cell with only basic amenities, and was released Monday afternoon.
The incident prompted his mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, to stay home instead of traveling to the Summer Olympics last week with Crown Prince Haakon as planned. She joined him later in the week but refused to answer questions about the drama in Oslo.
The entire incident has had wide press coverage in Norway, despite a local press tradition of restraint when covering royal drama. Nor are most crime defendants identified in Norway unless they’re convicted. In this case, however, even the most traditional and careful media outlets like NRK and newspaper Aftenposten determined that coverage and identification was necessary, because Høiby is a member of the royal family and still lives on the estate at Skaugum.
It’s also the first time a member of the royal family has been charged with a crime: “When a member of the Crown Prince’s family is charged in a criminal case, there is a legitimate need for information,” wrote Aftenposten in Wednesday’s edition. Aftenposten acknowledged that the case is a “major burden for him and those closest to him,” but signalled that it would be following the case closely, stressing how it was important that Høiby’s own version of events are revealed when he’s agrees to be questioned by police.
Trond Norén Isaksen, a historian and author of seven books on the Norwegian monarchy, also stressed that members of the royal family “are not private persons.” Isaksen wrote in Aftenposten on Tuesday that King Harald himself determined that Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s son from a previous relationship was a member of kongefamilien (the royal family), if not kongehuset (which includes only those in direct line to the throne: King Harald and Queen Sonja, the crown couple and their first-born child, Princess Ingrid Alexandra). The royal family also includes the crown couple’s son Prince Sverre Magnus, Princess Martha Louise, her three daughters and the king’s elderly sister, Princess Astrid.
Isaksen noted that even though the palace announced that Høiby wanted “to live outside the public spotlight,” he has held on to his status as a member of the royal family. “Since members of the royal family are not private persons,” Isaksen wrote, “it’s therefore not a private matter when a member of the royal family is charged with a crime for the first time ever.”
Crown Prince Haakon has himself called Høiby’s arrest “a serious matter, when police are handling it as they are.” Høiby, who’s reportedly unemployed at present, still hadn’t submitted to questioning by police, though, 10 days after the violent incident. Lawyers told Aftenposten that they sometimes advise their clients not to answer questions until they’ve “gathered their wits” and won’t misspeak. In Høiby’s case, the police also still hadn’t presented the full case against him, according to his lawyer Bratlien.
Some commentators were critical that Royal Palace staff and the monarch himself haven’t answered questions themselves. “Is Harald V serving the people, or the family?” wrote Synnøve Vereide Trampe in newspaper Dagsavisen. She noted that Norwegian support for the monarchy has fallen from as high as 81 percent in 2017 to 73 percent his spring, and young Norwegians are the least supportive: only 69 percent among those aged 18 and 29.
“It’s questionable how long they can sit still in the boat if it’s sinking,” Trampe wrote. Royal scandals don’t build public confidence, she noted, and this one has already spread around the world.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
