The trial of a man accused of having caused a fire in a vacant house, putting the lives of a homeless couple who usually spent the night there at risk, continued today, in the Judicial Court of Funchal.
The case dates back to November 2023. According to the prosecution of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), the defendant used a lighter to set fire to four different points of the vacant house, located on Rua do Pombal, in Funchal. At that time, a man and a woman were inside the house, and the accused emphatically stated that it was the homeless man who caused the fires, not him.
In the first session of the trial, which took place in early December last year, the defendant, aged in his 40s, denied having caused the fire, pointing blame to the other man—a version contrary to that of the accusation, which the offended yesterday refused.
Without the defendant present, the man who was trapped inside the burning building that day was heard by the court and blamed the defendant. According to this version, both this man and his partner consumed ‘bloom’ that morning, whilst under the influence the defendant threatened the couple and set the house on fire. The origin of the argument surrounded the paternity of the couple’s child.
The story of the offended party was, in turn, refuted by the defendant, who maintained the version he had advanced in the initial session of the trial. The man, a native of the mainland, attributed responsibility to the other man, saying it was not ‘the first time that he tried to betray him.’ He also stated that, despite being a consumer of ‘bloom’ at that time, he was not homeless but chose to sleep in abandoned properties.
When confronted by Judge Teresa de Sousa, who asked him if he was homeless “by choice,” the defendant replied that he was.
