A citizen has been named a defendant on suspicion of having caused the large fire that raged for 13 days in August on the island of Madeira, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) said yesterday.
“There is already a defendant”, said the coordinator of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the autonomous region, Isabel Dias, in a written response sent to the Lusa news agency.
On Thursday, the Judicial Police (PJ) had already indicated that the fire, which raged between 14 and 26 August, had been caused by the launching of rockets in the parish of Serra de Água, in the municipality of Ribeira Brava, in the west of the island, confirming the information released that day by DN/Madeira, which also reported the constitution of a defendant in the process.
In a statement, the PJ explained that, after investigations carried out by the Madeira Criminal Investigation Department, “it was found that the fire had its origins in the launch of rockets”.
The investigation carried out, namely through the collection of relevant statements, analyses of circumstances, meteorological information, official information from various entities, as well as evidentiary analysis of various elements, made it possible to identify both the location and those responsible for launching the rockets.
At the time, however, the PJ did not indicate whether arrests had been made or whether defendants had been named.