Marius Borg Asks an Oslo Court for His Freedom Today: Sentenced to Four Years in Prison, He Has Lived Since July With an Ankle Monitor on the Royal Skaugum Estate

Today at 9:15, the man the Norwegian royal house has been carrying like a stone in its shoe for some time stands before the Oslo District Court. Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Queen Mette-Marit, is asking for his house arrest with electronic monitoring at the royal Skaugum estate to be lifted. The court has one question to answer: do the reasons for that measure still exist?

The numbers so far aren't small. First arrest in Oslo in August 2024. First-instance verdict: four years in prison for around thirty offences. House arrest at Skaugum since July, with a device on his ankle. The defence is appealing the verdict, and the Court of Appeal will take up the case on 9 February.

Prosecutor Oda Karterud isn't budging. She is asking for four more weeks of detention with the ankle device, arguing there's a risk of reoffending. Lawyer Aleksander Greker says the opposite. "In our view there is no basis for him to remain in custody," he told the Norwegian paper Dagbladet. And he added a sentence meant more for the judge than for readers: "The burden is far greater than what has come out in public."

Marius plans to explain to the court in person how house arrest weighs on him. The defence doesn't dispute that the measure has already been extended twice, but argues a third extension has no basis. There will be one witness at the hearing, and a concrete job offer will be shown, which according to the defence would give him back part of a normal life. Swapping the ankle device for a security alarm, which would give him a little freedom, has so far stayed on paper.

This is where the story gets bigger than one hearing. Skaugum isn't a cell, and an ankle monitor in the middle of a royal estate doesn't look like an ankle monitor in a seventh-floor flat. On 9 September Marius left house arrest to attend the funeral of King Harald V in Oslo. Today his mother is queen and he is a convict with an appeal under way.

Would anyone in the Balkans believe a judge would treat a ruler's son like any other convict? The Norwegian court decides today whether the measure stays. The real test, the appeal, comes on 9 February.