COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) 鈥 The trial of a Polish man accused of punching Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in the shoulder in June began Tuesday, with Frederiksen not expected to appear in court.
She suffered a minor whiplash injury when a man assaulted her in and canceled her schedule for the next few days.
The Ekstra Bladet newspaper said the unidentified 39-year-old Polish man is charged with punching Frederiksen's right shoulder with a clenched fist, causing her to lose her balance, but not fall.
Defense lawyer Henrik Karl Nielsen told Copenhagen District Court that his client pleaded not guilty, it said.
The Polish man, who has been living in Denmark for five years, told the court that he was 鈥渋ntoxicated by alcohol but not drunk鈥 and was just wandering around when he saw Frederiksen, Danish public broadcaster DR reported.
A police officer assigned to Frederiksen鈥檚 protection told the court that she had stopped to talk on the phone when the man walked up to her and hit her after saying something incomprehensible.
鈥淚n the situation, it seemed he was angry,鈥 the bodyguard, identified only by his police number KF081, told the court, according to DR.
The Polish man was immediately arrested.
Frederiksen was taking a break from campaigning for her Social Democratic Party in European Parliament elections when the assault occurred at a busy downtown Copenhagen plaza. The attack was not linked to the campaign event.
The man, who has been held in , also faces other charges including sexual harassment by exposing himself to passing people and groping a woman at a commuter train station, and fraud involving deposit-marked bottles and cans at two supermarkets. He has confessed to those charges.
Prosecutors said the suspect has 22 previous convictions for petty crimes, mainly shoplifting, DR reported.
He told the court that his parents live in Denmark and his wife and daughter are in Poland.
Frederiksen, 46, is the leader of the Social Democratic Party and has been Denmark鈥檚 prime minister since 2019. She led the country through the global COVID-19 pandemic and a controversial 2020 decision to wipe out Denmark鈥檚 entire captive mink population to minimize the risk of the mammals spreading the virus.
The trial is scheduled to end Wednesday, when a verdict is expected.
The assault came as violence against politicians spread in the runup to the EU elections. In May, a candidate from Germany鈥檚 center-left Social Democrats was and seriously injured while campaigning.
In Slovakia, the campaign was overshadowed by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico on May 15, sending shockwaves through the nation and reverberating throughout Europe. was shot in the abdomen and seriously wounded. The suspect was immediately arrested and faces terror charges.
Assaults on politicians in Denmark are rare.
On March 23, 2003, two activists threw red paint at then-Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen inside parliament and were immediately arrested.
