A Polish man has pleaded not guilty to assaulting Denmark's Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, stating he was too drunk to recall the incident.

The suspect, whose identity is protected by legal restrictions, is currently on trial in Copenhagen. He faces charges of violence against a public servant, as well as multiple counts of indecent exposure and fraud related to other incidents. While he has admitted guilt to some of the other charges, he faces potential imprisonment and deportation.

PM Frederiksen sustained minor injuries to her neck and shoulder in the attack, which occurred just three weeks after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was severely injured in an assassination attempt.

The 39-year-old Polish defendant told the court that he had been having a bad day when he encountered Ms. Frederiksen in June, shortly before the European Parliament elections. "I was standing face to face with the Prime Minister, and then I can't remember anything else until I was arrested," he said, according to AFP news agency.

Ms. Frederiksen, who was punched in the shoulder, was able to leave the scene without assistance. She later stated that she was "shaken" but "fine" following the incident. The prime minister was taken to the hospital for a check-up and subsequently withdrew from the last day of campaigning for the European elections.

Ms. Frederiksen will not testify at the trial, but one of her bodyguards described the attack. The bodyguard reported that the man approached her on a busy street, said something incomprehensible, and then delivered "a hard punch with his fist on her shoulder."

Mette Frederiksen, 46, is the leader of Denmark's Social Democrats, the largest party in the country's coalition government. She became the youngest prime minister in Danish history when she took office in 2019. Photo by News Oresund, Wikimedia commons.