A former convicted divorcée, who was last year acquitted of arson charges because she suffered from psychosis, was found guilty of starting a fire in her social housing apartment building.
The High Criminal Court sentenced the 39-year-old Bahraini woman to a year in prison and fined her BD50.
She was also found guilty of breaking the windshield of her neighbour’s Ford Mustang, and was ordered to compensate its owner, a Coastguard officer, BD266 for the damage she incurred.
Five other people, who live in the Housing Ministry building, have testified to seeing the defendant acting strange, spewing profanities or holding a lighter.
According to the verdict, a custodian employed by the Housing Ministry recounted that he heard the fire alarm, then saw the defendant stepping out of the lift with a lighter and a cigarette in hand.
A woman who lives on the fifth floor, near the suspect’s apartment, testified to being woken up at 5.45am by a call from her other neighbour, who asked her to leave her unit.
“I noticed smoke arising in the living room, then discovered that there was a fire in front of my door,” the neighbour stated.
“The fire was put out by one of our neighbours, who informed me that the accused was behind it.”
She added that when she saw the defendant, she asked her why she started the fire, and she responded: “I will kick you and break your face”, and also hurled another vulgar phrase at her while she was being removed from her vicinity.
Another fellow resident, a policeman, testified that the suspect approached him earlier in the day and asked if he had a lighter, and he said no.
He claimed in Public Prosecution hearings that the ex-con admitted, “I just broke the windshield of the yellow Mustang, and now I’ll go to the fifth floor and burn it.”
The owner of the American car claimed that the defendant wrote her name in the dust that had settled on the car.
Last year, the GDN reported on a trial in which the accused woman was convicted in absentia of intentionally burning a few blankets in her parents’ house in Jid Ali.
She was sentenced to a year behind bars, but was able to convince judges to overturn the ruling after a panel of psychiatrists diagnosed her with psychosis and stated that she was not fit to stand trial.
However, a new psychiatric evaluation, ordered specifically for the current case, declared her that she could be held responsible for her actions.
The woman has a criminal record that goes back to the mid-2000s, and had a few years ago given birth to a baby out of wedlock, which was reportedly ‘taken away’ from her.
Following the baby’s removal from the defendant, she appeared to have plunged into a deep depression, and had as a result threatened to throw herself out of a window.
“My family are all against me; they do not want me to take care of my baby who I gave birth to recently,” she testified in the previous case.
“They took her away from me and I want her back.”
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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