Prosecutor Karsten Monsen said enough evidence had been presented this week at Stavanger district court to find Birkedal guilty of the most serious charges, newspaper Aftenbladetreports.

The 31-year-old Birkedal, formerly head of the right-wing populist party’s youth wing, resigned from all posts in the party after his arrest last March.

The Stavanger politician was seeking to become the local party chair at the time of his arrest.

Birkedal is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old youth party member in Oslo in 2008. He is also suspected of sexually abusing several other boys, and filming boys in the shower at his home.

Speaking in court on Wednesday, Birkedal claimed his now 18-year-old accuser had invented the story of their sexual relationship to impress his friends.

“My theory is that it would have been a feather in his cap to be able to say he’d had sex with Trond Birkedal. I think this started with him boasting of this happening before he was pressed by the party leadership to report it to the police, which is something he didn’t want to do.”

Birkedal shared a hotel room with the 15-year-old one night in 2008 but denied allegations the pair had engaged in massages, oral sex, and mutual masturbation, or that they had shared a shower. 

He is also accused of secretly filming four people showering at his home and six counts of getting boys aged 15-17 to carry out acts of a sexually abusive nature.  

The case rocked the Progress Party when it emerged that top officials, including party leader Siv Jensen, had known since 2009 of suspicions that Birkedal was in a sexual relationship with an underage member of the party’s youth wing.