Girl accused of starting blaze acquitted
The goods depot was a hangout for young people. They could get together there and smoke cannabis.
On 14th August last year a girl and three youths left the goods depot at 5 pm. Half an hour later the goods depot, which was more than 100 years old, was ablaze.
The 16-year-old girl was suspected of having thrown a still-burning cigarette butt into a space between a pile of Frigolit and an outer wall. One of the youths, aged 17, who was there was sure, at the trial, that the girl threw away the cigarette butt.
– I saw it with my own eyes.
The girl was accused of negligence by causing danger to the public, serious crime,and secondly of doing nothing to avert danger to the public and of trespassing. She and her defence lawyer say that any of the four could be guilty of starting the fire, that any one of them could have been careless with cigarettes.
While being questioned by the police the girl admitted that she herself had thrown away the burning cigarette butt.
”So it’s been hard for me to get my head round this. For I thought it might have been my fag”, she said in an earlier hearing.
But she withdrew that in the trial. Instead she pointed out her friends as being the guilty ones.
The fire caused damage for 20 million crowns, and 680,000 travellers were affected. Rail traffic was at a standstill for a week.
