Prince Ernst August of Hannover on Trial

The husband of Monaco’s Princess Caroline is on trial starting today. Prince Ernst August of Hannover is being charged with assaulting a club owner in Kenya back in 2000.

The Prince – who is a distant relative to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II – admits he did hit the owner but denied using anything but his hands.

Ernst August is looking to having his sentence and charge reduced after being convicted in 2004 of causing serious bodily harm and fined euro445,000 ($633,560).

In 2004, a German court found that the Prince repeatedly beat Joseh Brunlehner with a metal object after becoming irritated from the noise from a nearby dance club.

Although the incident happened in Kenya, the Prince was not arrested by Kenyan authorities, but instead by German, who are allowed to arrest citizens who commit crimes abroad.

Ernst August denies using any metal objects to attack Brunlehner. Instead he says he “gave a symbolic left and right slap to the face,” his attorney Hans Wolfgang Euler said, reading an hour-long statement from the prince.

Ernst August’s trial was reopened when witnesses – including wife Princess Caroline – testified they could corroborate his story. This trial is expected to last 11 days and it is unknown if Caroline would be called to the stand.

The Prince has had brushes with the law previously. In 1999, he was fined for attacking a photographer, and had his license suspended for speeding on a French highway in 2003.

Most famously, he was photographed in 2000 urinating outside a Turkish pavilion during the World’s Fair in Hannover.