Far-right Swedish MEP charged with sexual molestation

A far-right member of the European Parliament has been charged with sexual molestation in Sweden.

Peter Lundgren, of the anti-immigrant nationalist party the Sweden Democrats, has denied the allegation.

The Prosecution Authority said in a statement the alleged crime took place in a hotel room on the outskirts of Stockholm in March 2018.

Mr Lundgren was named in a court document as the person charged.

“To me it has been clear from the very beginning that this is not a matter for the Swedish legal system – a stance that I maintain,” Mr Lundgren said in a comment. “No irregularities have simply taken place.”

Prosecutors opened an investigation into the alleged crime in May.

In a video the party posted on YouTube in May, Mr Lundgren said he had behaved rudely towards, and apologised to, a party colleague who in the same video said she was not planning to make a police complaint.

In Sweden, members of the public can make complaints to the police about certain crimes.

“We have from the start had a good dialogue with involved parties and we have therefore seen the matter as closed,” a Sweden Democrats spokesman said in an email.

“Looking at the new information that has emerged, we’ll have to await the process that our judicial authority carries out.”

The party is the third-biggest in the Swedish parliament.

In some recent opinion polls it has been neck-and-neck with the biggest party, the Social Democrats, and in a poll this month it overtook the Social Democrats.

Additional reporting by Reuters