A Swedish far-right lawmaker was charged with assault on Friday after a fight outside a nightclub in Stockholm last year, public prosecutors said.
"On November 24 the member of parliament was standing in line to enter a nightclub when a fight broke out and the politician is now charged with beating another man," the Stockholm public prosecutor's office said in a statement.
The daily Expressen published a surveillance video in November showing Kent Ekeroth assaulting the victim.
Ekeroth was reportedly furious at being refused entry into the upscale Stockholm nightclub, and said he was provoked by the victim who mocked him as he walked away.
Ekeroth, 35, has admitted slapping the victim but insisted he acted in self-defence.
"I had the reflex to defend myself by giving an aggressor a light slap," Ekeroth told Aftonbladet.
The victim has meanwhile insisted he was punched in the face.
A conviction of this type of assault usually leads to a fine, the prosecutor said.
Ekeroth, who has been at the centre of several scandals throughout his political career, was recently suspended by his parliamentary group and dismissed from his position as international relations officer of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, which is seeking a respectable image.
A 2010 video emerged in 2012 of Ekeroth filming two other Sweden Democrat colleagues shouting racist abuse at two men and calling a woman who tried to intervene a "whore".
The same video showed Ekeroth and his colleague Erik Almqvist, 31, picking up iron bars after a heated argument with a drunken man outside a fast-food restaurant in Stockholm.
A Swedish far-right lawmaker was charged with assault on Friday after a fight outside a nightclub in Stockholm last year, public prosecutors said.
“On November 24 the member of parliament was standing in line to enter a nightclub when a fight broke out and the politician is now charged with beating another man,” the Stockholm public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The daily Expressen published a surveillance video in November showing Kent Ekeroth assaulting the victim.
Ekeroth was reportedly furious at being refused entry into the upscale Stockholm nightclub, and said he was provoked by the victim who mocked him as he walked away.
Ekeroth, 35, has admitted slapping the victim but insisted he acted in self-defence.
“I had the reflex to defend myself by giving an aggressor a light slap,” Ekeroth told Aftonbladet.
The victim has meanwhile insisted he was punched in the face.
A conviction of this type of assault usually leads to a fine, the prosecutor said.
Ekeroth, who has been at the centre of several scandals throughout his political career, was recently suspended by his parliamentary group and dismissed from his position as international relations officer of the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, which is seeking a respectable image.
A 2010 video emerged in 2012 of Ekeroth filming two other Sweden Democrat colleagues shouting racist abuse at two men and calling a woman who tried to intervene a “whore”.
The same video showed Ekeroth and his colleague Erik Almqvist, 31, picking up iron bars after a heated argument with a drunken man outside a fast-food restaurant in Stockholm.
