Gardener accused of sparking the Costa del Sol wildfire in August 2012 that left two people dead is acquitted

An appeal court in Malaga has acquitted the gardener who was accused of sparking the Costa del Sol wildfire in August 2012, which burned more than 8,500 hectares of land in several towns and left two people dead and four others injured.

"It cannot be determined, with certainty, what was the cause of the fire - which had such regrettable consequences and caused such serious loss of life, injuries, damage to the environment, public and private property etc., and which has caused so much expense," the court judgement stated.

The individual, who was a gardener and working at a private property in the Barranco Blanco de Coín area, was charged with the crimes of starting a forest fire, reckless endangerment of life, two crimes of reckless homicide and another of culpable injury.

The court considered the "serious and regrettable" events that happened on 30 August 2012 as a result of the fire to be proven; but concluded that "they do not constitute a criminal offence attributable to the accused" and that it was not possible to determine the point of origin of the fire.

The 82-page judgement stated that "there was no objective and unquestionable evidence of his - the defendant's - intentional or reckless conduct, with disregard for the most elementary rules of conduct, and serious infringement of the rules governing the activity, which caused the damage caused by the forest fire".

The accused denied in his evidence to the court that started a bonfire to dispose of pruning remains, assuring that he was on the plot where the fire originated, but doing other work, as he was in charge of maintenance.

The court judgement now considers it proven that the man did indeed work at the private property on the day and left the remains of prunings and plant cleaning on the farm, "in a place where bonfires had been lit in the past, leaving ash marks".

However, the document revealed "there was no evidence that the accused set fire to these pruning remains or proceeded to burn them on that day and in that place, at that time, and there is no evidence to support this, nor any means of ignition, wicks, etc., nor any object related to the act of setting fire, nor that he did not control the place in the desired manner, nor did he infringe specific fire control and prevention regulations, on that day, time, place and moment", added the court judgement.

The court, in reaching its judgement, said it had analysed all the expert reports and taken into account the virulence of the fire, its entity and severity, as well as the factors of temperature, humidity, and changing winds, the existence of dry grass and the location of the terrain".

However, given the discrepancy in the experts' reports and in the evidence presented during the trial, the court pointed out that "it is not possible to determine, with certainty and certainty, the cause of the fire" and added that "it could have been be a fortuitous or reckless action" or started "by cigarette butts or environmental factors".

"There is no proof whatsoever - beyond simple hypotheses, possible considerations, beliefs, depending on the place or point of origin - and therefore no one can be held responsible for it", the ruling stated.

The judgement insisted that there was no objective proof against the accused that links him to the start of the fire and said that as there was no cause-effect connection between acts of the accused and the forest fire, it was not appropriate to decree subsidiary civil liability of the owner of the property, although it reminded the injured parties that they can take civil or other types of action once the sentence is finalised.