Brain-damaged Dutch Prince Friso transferred home

Dutch Prince Friso, brain-damaged after being buried by an avalanche in Austria last year, has been transferred from a London hospital to receive treatment at his mother's residence in the Netherlands, the royal palace said on Tuesday.

In a statement, it said the prince still displays "minimal conscience" and that his condition "remains worrying", but that it is no longer necessary to keep him at the Wellington Hospital in London.

He arrived at queen Beatrix's palace in The Hague on Tuesday.

"Prince Friso will spend the summer with his family in the Huis ten Bosch palace where a medical team... will take care of him," said the statement.

The palace said long-term possibilities for treatment are currently being explored both in Britain and in the Netherlands.

Forty-four-year-old Prince Friso, the younger brother of King Willem-Alexander, was injured while skiing off-piste in the Austrian Alps in February, 2012.

In 2004, Prince Friso married Mabel Wisse Smit, giving up his claim to the throne as well as his Royal House position after it emerged that his future wife had withheld details of her previous relationship with a Dutch drug baron and the prime minister at the time declined to ask parliamentary permission.

At the time, Prince Friso was fourth in line to the throne.

The couple have two children.

© 2013 AFP