World News | Danish lawmaker acquitted of EU funds fraud

COPENHAGEN, Dec. 21 (AP) — A right-wing Danish lawmaker was acquitted Wednesday of misusing 98,835 crowns ($14,105) worth of EU funds and falsifying documents.

Morten Messerschmidt, the leader of the once-powerful Danish People’s Party, did not make false statements about holding an EU conference in 2015 to secure EU funding, a court in Copenhagen has ruled.

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He maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

“It means a lot. This case casts a shadow over the Danish People’s Party and me as a politician for seven years and months,” Messerschmidt said after the verdict.

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Danish prosecutors have not indicated whether they will appeal.

Messerschmidt was in the European Parliament at the time of the alleged crimes. He won more individual votes than any other Danish candidate in the 2014 EU legislature election and has pledged to fight so-called EU fraud.

In August 2021, another Danish court sentenced Messerschmidt to probation in the same case. Messerschmidt was retried on the basis of judicial bias after the judge earlier liked comments on Facebook critical of Messerschmidt and the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party.

In Wednesday’s ruling, the Friedrichsberg district court said meetings organized by Messerschmidt, 42, in northern Denmark with his Movement for European Liberal Democrats (MELD) cost EU funds, which The pan-European party disbanded in 2015.

The case began when OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud agency, accused in 2019 that funds awarded to two pan-European political groups by the European Parliament were misused by their members.

But the court acquitted Messerschmidt of using a forged document he had submitted as a contract between the Danish People’s Party and the hotel where the MELD conference was held.

The contract was signed by the executive of the Danish People’s Party, who claimed to represent the hotel because the party was using it at the same time as MELD.

During the trial, several senior members of the Danish People’s Party and other witnesses contradicted Messerschmidt, who became the party’s chairman earlier this year.

Internal squabbling led to the downfall of the populist party that led Denmark’s crackdown on immigration two decades ago.

Thanks to the Danish People’s Party, the Scandinavian country has some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe.

In this year’s November 1 general election, the party faces competition from new right-wing parties for nationalist voters.

It got 2.6 percent of the vote, its worst result since its founding in 1995. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)