The Supreme Court ratified the seven-year prison sentence against the man accused of starting a fire in the building he rented in Orense, after threatening to “burn alive” his neighbors. More precisely, September 10 … In 2024, the Orense Provincial Court sentenced the accused to seven years in prison, as well as being prohibited from approaching within 300 meters of the building for eight years, and paying compensation of 7,537.18 euros and 41 euros to two neighbors concerned.
Faced with this conviction, the accused filed an appeal which was rejected by the Superior Court of Xustiza de Galicia (TSXG) on April 22, 2025, thus confirming the initial conviction. Faced with this, the accused again appealed to the Supreme Court, alleging a violation of the fundamental right to the presumption of innocenceconsidering that “the cause of the fire could not be determined because the source of ignition could not be determined”, and that its identification was based on the statements of the victims who “did not see the author of the fire”.
As the Supreme Court’s judgment, consulted by Europa Press, indicates, these allegations “must be inadmissible”, affirming that the decision taken is “logical, coherent and reasonable”, taking into account the existence of “multiple clues” and a conclusive assessment according to which “has sufficient incriminating content“.
Description of the facts
According to the resolution, between 7:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. On February 22, 2024, the defendant, 54 years old, entered “in a great state of agitation” to the building where he rented, shouting “Holy shit, I’m going to kill you, this is shit”, hitting “everything in his path”.
Due to the shouting and beating, one of the neighbors alerted the local police, who arrived at the scene and met the accused. After the agents left, the condemned “even more upset by the police presence“, he continued to hit and shout “son of a bitch, I’m going to burn you alive, you’re going to screw up tonight, call the police again, you son of a bitch, they’re going to find out, I’m going to ruin everything. »
Thus, “in retaliation for having informed the police”, the condemned man went down the stairs and stopped on the landing of one of the floors to set fire to the furniture that was there and the Christmas wreath that was on the door. The defendant then went back up the stairs to another floor and again set fire to the furniture on the landing, finally going back up to his home to hide.
The fire then began to spread inside the building through the wooden staircase, generating a large amount of smoke and forcing the residents of the most affected floors, who were then inside the building, to take refuge on the balconies and cover the access door to their accommodation with wet towels, until They were rescued by the police and firefighters who finally managed to put out the fire.
Likewise, the sentence specifies that the convicted person, between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, “used cocaine and methadone repeatedly“, concomitantly with the consumption of alcohol, “his psycho-physical state is not proven” at the time of the facts.
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