The head of the Investigative Court number 10 of Valencia, acting as incident guard, has decreed the entry into provisional prison, communicated and without bail for the 59-year-old man detained in relation to several intentional fires registered in the Devesa de El Saler , in Valencia.
The arrested person will now be investigated in an open case, initially and without prejudice to further classification, for the crime of aggravated forest fire, according to the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community.
The magistrate has agreed to recuse herself from the case in favor of the city’s Investigative Court number 14, which had already opened preliminary proceedings in relation to these events.
The Civil Guard arrested this man, of Spanish origin, this Wednesday. The investigations carried out by Seprona and citizen collaboration have been “fundamental” in locating the alleged perpetrator of the fires in an investigation that remains open and in which secrecy of the proceedings has been decreed.
As a result of the fire declared on Saturday and controlled on Sunday, 18 people had to be evacuated from the Casal l’Esplai hostel and a section of the CV-500 had to be cut.
It was being investigated whether the fire was intentional, as it was the ninth recorded since the summer in the Devesa de El Saler, which has a dune and Mediterranean forest system and is located in the Albufera natural park.
The City Council and the Generalitat later demanded that the Government increase the presence of the Civil Guard in the area as a preventive measure while searching for the suspect of having caused the fires.
