Norwegian princess' son arrested for assault just before rape trial

Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The son of Norway's crown princess was arrested on new assault charges Sunday just before his trial begins on Tuesday for four rape charges.

Oslo police said Marius Borg Høiby, 29, was arrested for alleged assault, making threats with a knife and violating a restraining order.

Høiby's trial on 38 charges -- including four rapes, domestic abuse of a former partner and illegal filming of a number of women without their knowledge or consent -- is set to begin Tuesday and last seven weeks.

He faces up to 16 years in prison. Høiby denied the most serious charges.

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For the new charges, police have requested four weeks of imprisonment to prevent him from re-offending. Oslo district court ruled that he could be kept in custody until March 2 unless otherwise decided by court.

The Norwegian royal family has been embroiled in controversy as Høiby's mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit's name showed up more than 1,000 times in the latest cache of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice on Friday.

Mette-Marit, 52, is married to the future king of Norway, Crown Prince Haakon. She is the future Queen.

The Norwegian parliament is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to keep the monarchy, which happens every four years. The effort to oust the monarchy isn't likely to succeed, but it may have more support this time.

"It seems that nobody has been thinking. Where are the counsellors, where's the royal court and where's the foreign office?" said Ole-Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen, a historian and royal correspondent for Norway's TV2, the BBC reported.

While Høiby is a private citizen and not officially part of the royal family -- he is Mette-Marit's son from a previous relationship -- Mette-Marit isn't.

"She's never a private citizen, she's always the crown princess and what she's doing in a private capacity or official capacity it will always redirect back to Norway -- or ricochet," Schulsrud-Hansen said

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