A MAN high on drugs allegedly set an apartment on fire in an attempt to smoke out his neighbours whose noisy antics were disturbing his plans to sleep, a court heard.
The 34-year-old Bahraini failed to appear for his first hearing at the High Criminal Court, where he is accused of arson and using crystal meth, locally known as shabu.
The defendant is said to have injured himself in the process as he suffered a cut to his leg from broken glass, read case files.
Luckily, the party had ended and none of the tenants, or their guests, in the three-storey building in Manama in May suffered injury.
The defendant described how he ‘lost his mind because of a continuous sound coming from his neighbours, before he decided to set the apartment on fire to force them out of the property’.
“I just wanted to sleep,” he said in his statement to prosecutors. “However, I couldn’t because there was a sound coming from my neighbours’ and it was so annoying that it caused me to lose my mind.
“I could not get any peace, so I decided to start a fire, so everyone in the building would temporarily leave and I could get some sleep. However, I cut part of my leg in the process and was left bleeding because of broken glass.
“I set the apartment on fire after burning a chair. No one was in the apartment and the door was open because the tenants had left. I just wanted to get some peace of mind.”
One of the tenants described how he spotted the defendant in the apartment. “I smelt a lot of smoke and rushed to see what was happening in my neighbour’s apartment,” the 45-year-old Bahraini said in his statement to prosecutors.
“I saw that it was on fire and the defendant was lying on the ground and his leg was bleeding. He was sitting next to broken glass and I was shocked to see him and the apartment in such a state. Firemen then arrived to tackle the flames.”
The trial has been adjourned until July 17 for review.
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