Polish man sentenced to four months, deported from Denmark for punching prime minister

COPENHAGEN —  A Polish man on Wednesday was sentenced to four months in jail for assaulting the Danish prime minister as well as separate sexual harassment charges. He will also be deported and banned from returning to Denmark for the next six years.

The unidentified 39-year-old man, held in pretrial custody since the assault, has been charged with punching Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s right shoulder with a clenched fist, causing her to lose her balance but not fall. Frederiksen suffered whiplash at the time.

The man had also confessed before the Copenhagen District Court to other charges, including sexual harassment by exposing himself to passing people and groping a woman at a commuter train station.

Frederiksen was on a private break from the Social Democratic Party’s campaign for the elections to renew the European Parliament when the assault took place on a busy downtown Copenhagen plaza. The 46-year-old prime minister, who has been in office since 2019, had been campaigning for her party’s European Union lead candidate, Christel Schaldemose, who was elected. The attack was not linked to the campaign event.

Olsen writes for the Associated Press