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ZWEDRU, Liberia: Hundreds of people gathered Friday in rural Liberia for the state funeral of authoritarian former president Samuel Doe 35 years after his assassination, part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation efforts over its violent past.

Doe’s brutal 1990 torture and murder were an early turning point in the two civil wars that killed around 250,000 people and ravaged Liberia’s economy.

He is being commemorated at his home compound in southeastern Grand Gedeh County alongside his wife, Nancy, who died in May and will be buried at the estate.

Liberians gathered along the route Friday as the couple’s caskets – his symbolic, and hers containing her body – were slowly driven through the county capital of Zwedru on the bed of a truck decorated in bunting in the country’s red, white and blue colors.

The state ceremony is being attended by President Joseph Boakai, who declared a period of mourning this week from Tuesday to Friday, with flags flown at half-mast.

His executive mansion Facebook page said the commemorations are part of a “broader effort” meant to “promote national reconciliation.”

The circumstances surrounding Doe’s death mark a notorious episode in Liberia’s history.

Infamous warlord Prince Johnson, a key player in the civil wars (1989 to 2003), appeared in a video watching his fighters slowly mutilate and torture Doe to death while he calmly sipped a beer.

Various rumors but little concrete information exists as to the fate and location of Doe’s remains following his death.

Doe’s own rise to power was also steeped in violence.

His 1980 to 1990 rule remains divisive, remembered by many Liberians as a brutal dictatorship, while others recall some transformative measures he implemented fondly.

Liberian Mercy Janjay Seeyougar said in Monrovia ahead of the funeral that she remembered how Doe once gave her a candy, and that during street cleanings he would “stop and be with the people who are doing the cleaning.”

In 1980, Doe, then an army sergeant in his late 20s, led a coup assassinating president William Tolbert, the last in a line of leaders from the Americo-Liberian ruling class comprised of the descendants of former US slaves.

Quickly establishing a regime of terror, Doe had 13 members of the government he had overthrown publicly executed on a beach and his regime subsequently jailed or persecuted many of its opponents.

He was elected in a 1985 presidential vote that many observers said was marked by fraud.

The brutality of his regime, combined with declining economic conditions and favoritism toward the Krahn ethnic group of which he was a member, led to increased unpopularity.

OSLO: Oslo police on Friday announced charges against Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, on multiple counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm after a months-long investigation of a case that involved a “double-digit” number of alleged victims.

Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary charges of bodily harm and criminal damage.

Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski said Høiby was cooperative during police questioning, which is now complete. Evidence in the case was drawn from sources including text-messages, witness testimonies and police searches, the police attorney said.

The charges included one case of rape involving intercourse and two cases of rape without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault and two cases of bodily harm, Kruszewksi said at a news conference.

“I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,” he said.

Defense attorney Petar Sekulic, in an email to The Associated Press, said Høiby was “absolutely taking the accusations very seriously, but doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in most of the cases — especially the cases regarding sexual abuse and violence.”

The case was top news in Norway, where the royals are popular.

Høiby, 28, previously lived with the royal couple and their two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, but now lives in a separate house nearby, according to Sekulic.

Høiby remains free pending a possible trial and is entitled to a presumption of innocence until a court rules otherwise.

Norway’s future queen made headlines in 2001 when she married Haakon because she was a single mother who had lived a freewheeling life with a companion who had been convicted on drug charges.