The sixteen-year-old boy who hit FVD leader Thierry Baudet with a beer bottle last November has been sentenced to prison and community service. The boy has to spend 109 days in jail, ninety of which are conditional. The community service sentence is eighty hours. The court in Groningen, where the incident itself previously took place, decided this on Friday, the ANP news agency reported.
Two weeks ago, the Public Prosecution Service had demanded a sentence of 148 days of juvenile detention and 80 hours of community service. According to the prosecutor, the suspect had previously confessed that he had hit Baudet on the back of the head with a beer bottle. In addition, he is said to have planned an assault on the politician, causing the Public Prosecution Service to suspect him of an “attempt to commit serious assault with premeditation”.
A year ago, Forum for Democracy held a campaign meeting in a Groningen pub. Baudet gave a speech there and was attacked shortly afterwards during a photo opportunity. The boy repeatedly hit him on the head and near his eye. Baudet himself suffered a head injury from the incident.
Just before the attack in Groningen, something similar happened to Baudet at the University of Ghent. In October last year, he was hit on the back of the head by a 33-year-old Ukrainian man, who was not prosecuted by Belgian justice. The FVD leader said he suffered a mild concussion from the incident.