Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit is no longer on sick leave and now faces more questions tied to her own actions on the day her oldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, was first arrested on charges of assault and drug use. The latest involve what happened to the SIM card in Høiby’s mobile phone, which was missing when police seized it on Sunday August 4, several hours after he’d attacked his girlfriend and vandalized her apartment.
Both state broadcaster NRK and newspaper VG have reported that when police seized his phone during his arrest, it lacked the SIM card recording calls and other activity and was also damaged. NRK also reported this week that Høiby told police under questioning that the SIM card was still in his phone when he’d used it earlier in the day, and that he didn’t know who took it out of the phone or where it is now.
Meanwhile, his mother, Mette-Marit, had been tipped by palace staff (who’d been contacted by police) that Høiby was about to be arrested on that Sunday, and she reportedly went to the house he used on the family’s royal estate at Skaugum. VG reported that the crown princess tidied her son’s home just before the arrest occurred at around 4pm. NRK now reports that Høiby told police she had tidied his home while he was in the shower.
He then walked to his old school, just across the road from Skaugum, where he met police, handed them his phone and was formally arrested. Guri Ofstad Varpe, communications chief for the Royal Palace, has confirmed the chain of events leading up to Høiby’s arrest. “Police chose not to arrest him at his place of residence and have never ransacked it,” Varpe wrote in a statement to NRK. The lawyer for another woman who claims she’s also been assaulted by Høiby has asked police to also call in Mette-Marit for questioning. The crown princess continues to decline comment on all the drama around her son and now herself.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
