An arsonist, who featured in a widely-circulated video which caught him in the act of setting a parked car on fire, has been sentenced to three years in prison at the High Criminal Court.
The 38-year-old Bahraini was also ordered to pay the victim – the owner of the damaged Mitsubishi Lancer – BD2,500 in damages to repair his car.
The court earlier heard that he had set alight the car, claiming that its owner had insulted his mother, although, the court heard, he had once been found guilty in court of beating up the same woman.
Although he earlier admitted to swearing fiery revenge against the victim in Public Prosecution questioning, the defendant later denied charges of arson and destruction of property in court.
Seen astride a motorcycle, the act was captured on a security camera and a clip of the incident spread on social media.
The previously-convicted defendant told the Public Prosecution that the victim – his neighbour’s friend – had accused him of purposefully loudly revving up his motor bike to disturb him, the day before the incident.
“He called me names, so I pulled a metal rod from my bike and was going to hit him, but he ran away. I swore that if I saw his car again, I would burn it!” he testified.
“I was on my way to my friend’s house and I saw it. I picked up a plastic bottle off the floor and siphoned some of the fuel from my motorcycle into it, then splashed it on his car and started a fire with a lighter.”
The Bahraini owner of the torched vehicle gave his own account of the unfortunate June incident, recounting that he was woken up by his mum, who told him that his car was in flames.
He took a fire extinguisher to help his father put out the fire, while a neighbour tried to attack it with a fire hose, but the flames kept getting stronger, until firemen arrived and got the situation under control.
After the fire was extinguished, the Hamad Town-dweller checked the house’s security cameras, where he reportedly found the now-circulated footage of the defendant pouring fluid on the car and setting it aflame
Sources were tipped off about the identity of the culprit, and he was arrested less than two hours later, and admitted to committing the crime ‘in retaliation’.
Investigations from the Civil Defence concluded that the fire was started deliberately, while laboratory tests found traces of highly-flammable petroleum at the scene.
The defendant’s criminal record, outlined in the prosecution’s case, revealed that he was once found guilty of physically assaulting his 58-year-old mother, and was fined for that in court.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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