Marius Borg Heibi, the son of a Norwegian princess, has told a court that he does not remember taking photos and videos found on his phone, which police say show him sexually assaulting a woman at a royal residence, the British newspaper The Guardian reports today.
Heibi, Mette-Marit's son from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, is in court on charges of 38 crimes, including four rapes and assaults.
He has pleaded not guilty to the most serious charges, including alleged rape, and faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.
The trial comes at a time of unprecedented pressure on the Norwegian royal family, with Mette-Marit also facing criticism over her links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Testifying today before the District Court in Oslo, the capital of Norway, Heibi gave his version of events from an "afterparty" in 2018, during which he was accused of groping a woman while she was unconscious.
Heibi, 29, said he saw in the footage that the woman, whose identity has been withheld by court order, appeared to be sleeping, but he denied all allegations of rape. In Norway, rape can be defined as an act that occurs with or without sexual intercourse.
As he said, the party was held in the basement of Skauguma, the official residence of the Crown Prince and Princess, while they were upstairs.
On Tuesday, the court was shown four videos and ten photographs, allegedly taken between 7:12 and 7:17 a.m. one morning in December 2018. The prosecution believes that rape without intercourse occurred during that period.
When the judge asked Heibi today about the recordings and photos found on his phone, Heibi said, "I don't even remember taking them."
He told the three judges that he and the woman had consensual sex, but not while she was asleep. She had to be awake, he said, because "I don't sleep with women who aren't awake."
Minutes after entering the courtroom to testify, Heibi burst into tears, saying it was "incredibly difficult for him to speak in front of so many people." The media, he said, had "harassed and tormented" him since he was three years old.
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