The firefighters from the Alenquer Corporation, accused by the Public Prosecution Service (MP) of causing forest fires in Lisbon district, between 2017 and 2018, have appeared the Court of Loures on Tuesday (29th October).
The prosecution of the MP, stated that the defendants, 21 and 24 years old – one of whom remains in pre-trial detention – were serving at the Alenquer Volunteer Firefighters Corporation. One volunteered in 2014 and May 2017, became a professional firefighter, while the other was a volunteer firefighter for the last six years.
The prosecution describes that, for reasons not fully established, the two firefighters decided to set fires in the municipality of Alenquer “to increase the response action to the fires by the Alenquer Volunteer Firemen.”
In some of the fires, one of the defendants acted alone and in the others acted in co-authorship.
Arriving at the locations, “armed with ignition devices such as lighters and combustion accelerators such as gas or gasoline,” one of the men stood behind the wheel of the vehicle, while the other “started the fire”.
“The locations chosen for the outbreak of the fires were hard to reach places, usually dirt roads in poor places, with limited traffic of vehicles or people, with easy access to easily inflammable undergrowth, underbrush and reeds, rich in combustible material ”, explains the MP.
The prosecution describes that the defendants allegedly setting off wildfires on the afternoon of September 7, 2017, at dawn on June 16, 2018 and on June 17, 2018, and there was an attempted fire in late July 2017
The two young men are accused by the MP of co-authoring four forest fire offenses in the consummate form and one forest fire offense in the attempted form.
One of the defendants is also responsible for two forest fire crimes, in the consummate form, and one aggravated forest fire crime, in the consummate form.
The judgment is scheduled to be read at 12:15.