DUBAI // A Filipino man who started a fire in a shop full of flammable liquids has been jailed for three months.
E R, 43, a sales representative, set alight cardboard boxes on October 13 after being denied a transfer from his company in the Burjuman mall to a branch in Jebel Ali, Dubai Criminal Court was told.
M K, the head of security at the Carrefour supermarket in the mall, where the defendant’s company rented a shop, told the court: “If we were seconds later, E R could have killed many people, burnt the whole place down or caused a massive explosion, because there were many flammable materials, such as cleaning liquids and perfumes in the store where he started the fire.”
M K, from Pakistan, said he received a call informing him of the fire, but it had been extinguished by the time he arrived.
“I went back to the camera recording and saw that E R went into the store, remained there for about five minutes then got out. Just after he left, in walked the other employee who immediately ran out saying there was a fire,” M K said.
M K said that when he asked the defendant about the fire “he confessed without any kind of force or pressure”.
E R denied that he started the fire deliberately.
“It happened by mistake, I did not mean to do it,” he told judges.
He will be deported after completing his jail term.
salamir@thenational.ae
