Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has been found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.

The three judges in courtroom 250 at Oslo District Court cleared him of two other counts of rape, but found him guilty of many of the other offences of which he had been accused.

Høiby was not in court for the verdict for unspecified health reasons, but joined the session via video link.

Prosecutors had called for Høiby to be given seven years and seven months in prison. His defence lawyers had called for a lesser term of 18 months and have said he will appeal.

Even though Marius Borg Høiby is not himself a royal figure, the trial has cast a shadow over the broader royal family. His mother married Crown Prince Haakon when he was four, and he grew up within the family. The palace has said it will not comment on Monday’s verdict.

Mette-Marit is very ill with a form of pulmonary fibrosis and has recently been placed on a lung transplant list.

Her son’s lawyers have repeatedly sought his release from prison so he could spend time with his mother because of her declining health.

After the verdict, Høiby’s defence lawyer Petar Sekulic again asked the court for his release, however the court rejected the plea late on Monday, ruling that there was a risk that he might contact a woman he was convicted of assaulting, and who he had broken a restraining order to see in the past.

One of the three judges in the trial, Judge Jon Sverdrup Efjestad, began the session early on Monday with a summary of their conclusions, before going into a 128-page ruling explaining the verdict.

Høiby had denied all four counts of rape, but the judges convicted him of raping two women, including one on the Crown Prince’s estate at Skaugum in 2018 and another involving a woman in Oslo in 2024.

He was also convicted of abusing an ex-girlfriend, Norwegian influencer Nora Haukland and of causing serious bodily harm to another partner, in whose flat he was arrested in the upmarket Frogner area of Oslo in August 2024.

However, he was cleared of two further rapes, involving a woman he met at a hotel in Oslo in November 2024 and another he met while on holiday in the Lofoten islands in 2023.

Sekulic said it was “in the nature of the case that there could be an appeal”.

His defence colleague Ellen Holager Andenæs told reporters they were satisfied with the acquittals but were more critical of other aspects of the verdict.

Both lawyers then went to discuss the verdict with Høiby at Ila prison and detention centre outside Oslo.

[BBC]

Five Indian air force personnel have been killed after the aircraft they were travelling in crashed in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, according to officials.

The Antonov An-32 transport plane “met with an accident” during a “routine sortie” in Assam’s Jorhat region, the Indian Air Force said in a statement on Saturday.

“Crash site management and initial enquiries are on at this time,” the Air Force wrote, adding that an investigation to determine the cause of the accident was under way.

News channel NDTV broadcast images of the crash site, showing a thick black plume of smoke and the aircraft apparently broken into pieces.

India’s air force operates a fleet of about 105 An-32 aircraft to transport people and cargo.

The last major crash involving a  twin-engine turboprop took place in 2019 in Arunachal Pradesh state, near the border with China, when 13 people were killed

(Aljazeera)

A retired Nigerian army general who had been kidnapped by gunmen in the country’s north-west has died while being held captive, the military has said.

Maj Gen Rabe Abubakar, who had a high-profile job as military spokesman between 2015 and 2017, was abducted with his wife while travelling in Katsina state last month.

No group has said it was behind the kidnappings.

The abduction and death of Abubakar highlights the continuing security challenges facing parts of north-west Nigeria, where criminal gangs known locally as “bandits” frequently carry out kidnappings for ransom, as well as cattle rustling and attacks on rural communities.

Some militant jihadists have also operated in the region. An alleged militant camp in Sokoto state was the target of a US airstrike on 25 December last year.

Katsina has been one of the states most affected by the violence.

Local media reported that the retired officer had been going to a wedding on 30 May when armed men attacked his vehicle and seized him, his wife and their driver.

Days before news of his death emerged, a video shared on social media appeared to show Abubakar in captivity. He was seen with an apparent injury to his left leg alongside his wife and other hostages.

The military said it chose not to comment publicly on the abduction while efforts to free those in captivity were being made.

“In deference to ongoing rescue efforts by security agencies, the Armed Forces withheld public comment while every operational resource was deployed in the hope of securing his safe return,” the statement said.

The whereabouts and condition of Abubakar’s wife remain unknown. But a military spokesman said that “ongoing operations have since been further intensified to bring perpetrators to justice and to dismantle all terrorist networks threatening our nation”.

The military paid tribute to the major general, who local media reported was 61 when he died, describing the loss as “tragic” and offered condolences to his family and former colleagues.

A statement said he made “immense contributions to counter-insurgency operations… His commitment to duty and to the unity of Nigeria remains a shining example for all personnel.”

[BBC]