Amsterdam
The second in line to the Dutch throne has renounced his right to succession, vowing to marry his scandal-plagued fiancée next spring against the government’s wishes. The Dutch government refused to approve the marriage of Prince Johan Friso, second son of Queen Beatrix, to human-rights activist Mabel Wisse Smit, alleging she had given “false and incomplete information” about her past. Tabloids accuse Smit, 35, of having had an affair 15 years ago with one of the Netherlands’ most notorious criminals, the late drug kingpin Klaas Bruinsma. Smit says she once spent a weekend on Bruinsma’s yacht but did not sleep with him, and the prince stands by her. The royal family is used to wedding controversies: Riots broke out in the 1960s when then-princess Beatrix married a German who had been a member of the Hitler Youth.
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