A daredevil social media free-climber nicknamed the “Spider-Man of Yemen” has died after falling into a volcanic crater in the country’s south-west.

Al-Qaqa Ibn Antar had been attempting to climb its steep rock faces on Friday without safety equipment when he fell in, according to local authorities.

The 30-year-old had a large following on social media and was well known for performing daring acrobatic stunts in online videos.

The Hardah Dam volcanic crater is one of the country’s most famous natural landmarks.

Video footage appearing to show the moment of the fall has been widely circulating online.

It shows Antar climbing the near-vertical wall of the crater before appearing to lose his grip and fall.

Yemen’s Civil Defence Authority praised the “heroic efforts” of its water rescue team for successfully recovering Antar’s body “from the bottom of the crater” in a statement issued on Sunday.

It described the operation over the weekend as “highly dangerous”, and “one of the most difficult and complex field rescue missions”.

The authority said the team had been promoted after demonstrating “exceptional field capabilities amid rugged terrain, harsh environmental conditions and high temperatures inside the volcanic crater”.

It produced footage showing rescuers scaling down the side of the crater using climbing equipment, before winching a cage down to recover the climber’s body.

His body was found by divers inside the 120m-wide crater at a depth of 30m (98ft) below the water surface, according to the Associated Press.

The Hardah Dam in Dhale province has become somewhat of a tourist attraction in recent years, with a hot sulfur lake sitting at its base.

[BBC]

The case against Høiby involved six women, but only one of the women was in court to hear the verdict and she was seen crying as Høiby was found guilty of raping her.

Prosecutors said she had been either incapacitated or asleep when she was raped after a party in Oslo in March 2024, and after they had engaged in consensual sex.

The case rested on videos that Høiby had filmed at the time and, giving evidence in February, the woman told the court that she was asleep and would never have allowed it to happen.

The court agreed the victim had been unable to resist what had happened.

All four rape charges involved women who had been either asleep or incapacitated at the time. The women had been unaware of the incidents until police found videos on Høiby’s phone after his arrest.

The judges also found it proven that the woman in the 2018 rape case had been asleep at the time and unable to resist Høiby. She only found out that Høiby had filmed what had happened last year.

Høiby was also convicted of several offences including abuse and reckless behaviour towards the sixth woman in the case, who became known as the Frogner woman because of the area of Oslo where she lived.

The court ruled he should pay a total of 640,000 kroner (£50,000; €57,000) in compensation to four of the women, including Nora Haukland, the only woman judges ruled could be named in the case.

Anja Emilie Kruse, a criminologist at the University of Oslo who researches sexual violence and attended part of the trial, believes there is a frustration in parts of Norwegian society that the courts seem unable to deliver justice in rape cases.

“The burden of evidence needs to be high,” she concedes. However, most rape allegations by women are placed on file by police, Kruse has told the BBC, and the state prosecutor told the court on Monday that one in three Norwegian rape cases that do reach court ends in acquittal.

“These two women who today experienced their cases ending in acquittal are far from alone in having that experience, and the rape cases that do make it to court are just a kind of tip of the iceberg,” says Kruse.

The palace said in an email to the BBC that “the matter has been considered by the courts, and we have no comment on the outcome”. It has already made clear there will be no further statement on Mette-Marit’s declining health until she has had a lung transplant.

“There is no doubt that this case has affected people’s perception of the royal family,” said Caroline Vagle, royal correspondent for Se og Hør magazine.

That was further compounded by revelations on the eve of the trial that the crown princess had had a three-year friendship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

But Vagle believes the mood now is completely different: “Her health is the main concern now – and it overshadows everything else.”

Peggy Simcic Brønn, who is a specialist in reputation and public relations and professor emirata at BI Norwegian Business School, believes the royal family is in the midst of an institutional crisis.

“The Høiby case is a tragedy and a crisis for any family,” she said.

“The way they handle it is let the person be convicted, let him serve his sentence, but try to make amends as a family for what that person has done to their reputation and the impact on the royal house itself.”