Son of Norway crown princess detained for one week in rape probe

Police on Monday detained Marius Borg Hoiby, 27, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson to Crown Prince Haakon, and said he was suspected of having had sexual encounters with two women who were either unconscious or incapacitated.

Each accusation of rape concerned a "sexual encounter without intercourse", a police spokesperson said without elaborating.

Hoiby's lawyer, Oeyvind Bratlien, said his client was innocent and was opposed to being held in preventive detention.

It was not immediately clear if Hoiby would appeal the court's decision to place him in preventive detention.

Investigators had sought permission to hold him for up to two weeks.

Hoiby does not have a royal title and is outside the line of royal succession.

Police have said Hoiby also faces accusations of having used violence against other women and drug use.

On Aug. 4 police named Hoiby as a suspect of physical assault against a woman with whom he had been in a relationship.

Hoiby in a later statement to the media admitted to causing her bodily harm while he was under the influence of cocaine and alcohol and of damaging her apartment. Hoiby said he regretted his acts.

Crown Prince Haakon said on Tuesday the case had had an impact on everyone in the family.

"These are serious allegations Marius now faces, and we are of course thinking of all those affected," Haakon told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK while he was on an official visit to Jamaica.

The police investigation is still ongoing, and no trial date has been set.

The case has cast a spotlight on domestic violence in a country that prides itself on a high degree of gender equality but where one in 10 women in an academic study last year said they had been subject to severe harm at the hands of a partner.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in August the problems that had come to light in the royal family were similar to what many others in Norway had to contend with, and that support for the monarchy in his view remained firm.

Hoiby is the older half-brother of Princess Ingrid Alexandra, who is second in line to the throne after her father, and of Prince Sverre Magnus, who is third in line.