The campaign trail can be messy

Goran Hagglund addresses a news conference at Parliament in Stockholm on August 18, 2014. A spectator hit Hagglund's face with a pie during a meeting in Gothenburg in the evening on Monday. Picture: Janerik Henriksson, Scanpix

Goran Hagglund addresses a news conference at Parliament in Stockholm on August 18, 2014. A spectator hit Hagglund's face with a pie during a meeting in Gothenburg in the evening on Monday. Picture: Janerik Henriksson, Scanpix

Published Aug 19, 2014

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Stockholm -

Police say Sweden's social affairs minister had a pie thrown in his face while campaigning for next month's parliamentary election.

The incident happened on Monday in Goteborg, Sweden's second-largest city, where Goran Hagglund was giving a campaign speech for his Christian Democratic Party.

Goteborg police say the pie-thrower, a man in his 20s, was arrested on a preliminary charge of harassment.

The Swedish Security Service, which protects Cabinet ministers, said that its agents escorted Hagglund from the scene and that he was unharmed.

Hagglund's spokesman, Johan Ingero, declined to comment.

In a similar incident last year, a 60-year-old woman shoved a pie in the face of the leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. The woman was sentenced to two months in prison for that and other offences. - Sapa-AP

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