A Bahraini man has been sentenced to five years in prison and fined BD300 by the High Criminal Court for deliberately starting a fire in his 79-year-old mother’s house, causing damage to the ground floor and a chair.
The 40-year-old has been found guilty of committing arson and endangering the lives and property of others after she urged him to get his act together and find a job on a bus trip home.
The court heard that his worried mum had told the authorities that, prior to the incident, her son had threatened to set the house ablaze.
Scared that he would go through with his threat, she went to a nearby police station to file a report against him.
While she was at the station, she suddenly received a call from a neighbour, who alerted her that a fire had broken out. She rushed back home, accompanied by a police patrol, and saw part of her home engulfed in flames.
Civil Defence officers received a report of a fire at the residential property and were at the scene minutes later to tackle the flames.
The officers then launched an investigation to determine the cause and revealed that it had broken out in the living room on the ground floor.
The report also confirmed that the fire had been deliberately started and the flames and smoke had caused damage to the living room.
Estimated material losses included the cost of repainting the house at BD200, in addition to the destruction of a chair valued at BD300.
No injuries or casualties were reported as a result of the fire. The defendant was nowhere to be found.
She told investigators that her son had lived with her and helped with a few household chores but drug addiction had ‘negatively affected his behaviour and led to unstable actions’.
She added that in March 2026, he had asked her to pay his phone bill as he had no money. She agreed.
They then went together to a telecommunications company shop in Isa Town using public transport.
On the way back home, after she advised him to stay away from trouble and find work, he became angry and made the house burning threats. Still angry after the bus journey, he blocked her from getting into their home and kept repeating his threats. When she told him that his daughter and her beloved granddaughter was inside the house, he screamed at the child and threatened her as well.
Unable to control his rage, she rushed to the police station for help.
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