Spanish Supreme Court: Kissing someone's hand without consent is sexual assault

The case concerns a man who kissed a stranger's hand at a bus stop in a suburb of Madrid in 2023 and gestured for her to follow him.

The man was convicted of assault in a lower court, but his defense attorney appealed and wanted the court to reclassify the crime as a case of molestation.

But the country's Supreme Court has upheld the assault verdict on the grounds that the defendant "acted with the intention of violating her sexual integrity."

The penalty for the convicted person will be a fine of just over 16,000 SEK.