Frederiksen referred at a press conference to the violent attack on the Swede in connection with a World Cup event in Copenhagen, reports the Ritzau news agency. The man worked as a police officer in Sweden, but was not on duty when the assault occurred on June 30.
The prosecution has announced that it will seek a prison sentence of between eight and ten months for the 31-year-old man, who is being held in custody for the crime.
“Shocking to see”
"It was shocking for many of us to see what kind of punishment he risks. It just makes it worse," says Frederiksen.
In some cases, sentences for deadly violence are "completely unbelievably and completely unacceptably short," the prime minister believes.
The incident has received a lot of attention in Denmark, and many politicians have reacted to the fact that the prosecutor currently does not consider it a case of aggravated assault, but a lesser crime that could result in a maximum of three years in prison.
"It is largely a question of the reasonableness of this that politicians on both sides of the middle have reacted to," writes Astrid Søndberg, crime reporter at Danish TV2, in a comment to TT.
Politicians in the Folketing are in principle not allowed to comment on guilt in ongoing legal cases, she points out. But what the politicians here are reacting to is the prosecutor's initial assessment of the value of the penalty and whether the law should be changed.
However, the criminal investigation is not complete and what punishment the prosecutor will ultimately seek remains to be seen, adds Astrid Søndberg.
“One blow”
On Sunday, BT published a video of the incident that caused several politicians to react. However, the well-known lawyer Mette Grith Stage came to the prosecution's defence given the current legislation.
Her assessment is that eight to ten months in prison would be entirely reasonable.
"You see the perpetrator inflict a single blow on the victim and shortly afterwards he falls over. After that, the perpetrator does nothing more, but retreats," she tells BT.
