A young man, identified only as JRNN has been convicted in a fast track court process, and sentenced to four months in prison for assaulting a Guardia Civil officer who was questioning him about the forest fire that originated in Chipude, La Gomera last Saturday.
The man had originally been held in connection with starting the forest fire, but official sources confirmed last night that the accused was not, after all, being being charged with arson.
However, the prisoner, who lives in Tenerife, allegedly has a history of causing other fires in the same area and officers have a sound recording in their possession in which he apparently confesses to causing another fire which happened some time ago, but not the one that affected Garajonay National Park last week.
Officers have rounded up several suspects who have a history as alleged perpetrators of other fires, after experts maintained from the outset that the fire that has destroyed more than three thousand acres on the island of La Gomera was started intentionally.
The Guardia Civil say that investigations into the cause of the fire remain open.
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