A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to three years and ten months in prison for starting a fire in a block of flats where several people were present.
The verdict was passed in Borgarting Court of Appeal on Thursday and is somewhat milder than the sentence that the man received in Søndre Østfold District Court. There, he was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
On August 9 last year, the 60-year-old emptied several liters of petrol into his apartment in Halden and lit it. He then left the building.
The prosecuting authority asked the Court of Appeal to uphold the verdict from the district court, while the accused man appealed the issue of guilt and the charge of having caused a fire that could easily have resulted in the loss of human life.
The man’s explanation
The man said in court that he had worked for several years in the construction industry. He claimed that he reckoned that the fire alarm would go off immediately and that others would not be in danger.
The Court of Appeal did not trust this explanation. The verdict states that there is no doubt that the fire could easily have resulted in the loss of human life and that the defendant must have been aware of this risk as he himself chose to leave the building.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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