The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has dismissed the appeal lodged by the Town Hall of the capital against the acquittal of a man who was apprehended at the end of 2023 for allegedly being responsible for a series of fires that ignited on the same night in the city centre.
At 2:30 am on October 3, a fire erupted in a container with a capacity of 300 litres of waste owned by the local authority, situated outside the Anaga Primary Health Care Centre in the Casa Building by the sea, quickly spreading up the façade.
The flames affected the exterior of the first floor and the cladding of the second, until they were eventually extinguished by staff from the health centre and the Fire Brigade, resulting in damages estimated at around 2,500 euros.
Half an hour later, another fire was reported in cardboard boxes positioned outside several waste containers on La Marina Street, which did not spread, thanks to the swift response of some police officers, thus preventing any damage.
Twenty minutes subsequently, an individual placed a plastic bottle containing burning paper beneath a vehicle on the nearby San Francisco Street, also in Tuscal, but again, no damage was incurred.
The Criminal Court, and now the hearing, concludes that it cannot be established that the 59-year-old defendant is responsible for the damage to public property via fire, as alleged.
The defendant suffers from depression and bipolar disorder, therefore, it is not excluded that on that day he may have experienced a confusional state affecting his cognitive abilities.
Once detained, he was placed in a situation of preventive custody and following the initial acquittal ruling, he was released immediately.
Subsequently, the Prosecutor’s Office decided to submit an appeal before the hearing, which has now reiterated the same stance as the court, asserting that the initial ruling contained an error and that the evidence presented was inadequate.
Although the Public Prosecutor concedes that there is no direct and unequivocal evidence of the facts, they argue that the circumstances were indirectly demonstrated, given that the three fires occurred within a single hour in proximity to each other.
In the case of the first incident by the seaside, a guard identified the suspect but expressed doubt over his identification.
Regarding the fire on La Marina Street, there were no witnesses, and in the third case, an individual claimed to have seen someone committing the act from a nearby first-floor level.
The neighbour was able to identify him from a photograph supplied by the Local Police; however, the court did not have access to this image, and during the trial, the witness could not definitively identify the defendant.
The judges expressed that there exists “a very reasonable doubt” regarding the suspect’s identification and culpability, given that the sole piece of evidence was that he had been present in the vicinity of the first incident half an hour earlier, which could be compounded by his mental health issues, yet it did not lead to a definitive conclusion.
The Prosecutor’s Office contended that another piece of evidence is that all three fires transpired in the same vicinity within just an hour and must have been instigated by a single perpetrator, a view the audience considers subjective.
