Noa de la Torre Valencia

Valencia

Updated Monday, February 19, 2024-04:07

"Reality is stranger than fiction. And I see this every day with my profession." The person who presents himself like this in his professional

Linkedin

profile is a lawyer from

Valencia

with 25 years of experience behind him. It responds to the acronym JC and is committed to offering its clients "legal services for everyday life", as it sees itself as an "expert who guides you and helps you" to solve those conflicts that unfortunately can end in courts. From inheritances and fines to sales and alcohol complaints. And since the truth is that reality surpasses fiction, the lawyer is now the investigated person who has to defend himself.

JC is the main suspect in the series of fires that have been occurring in recent months in

El Saler

, in an area near the

Albufera

natural park in Valencia. A fragile ecosystem of great ecological value that has been in the sights of the alleged arsonist since the summer. The flames, in fact, reappeared last week, in a new fire that burned 14 hectares of the natural park and forced the evacuation of several nearby residential buildings.

It was only the last of the almost twenty fires that in less than a year have devastated El Saler and have set off all the alerts. In the

Valencia City Council

itself - the mayor,

María José Catalá

, went so far as to say that what there is is "a madman who wants to set fire to El Saler" - and among the residents of El Saler themselves, who have even set up citizen patrols to keep the alleged arsonist under surveillance.

"Lawyers are mediators and solvers, we handle information and know how to act before justice and the Administration," explains in his social profile that JC maintains active. He knows what he is talking about because, in reality, he has already been in prison.

The lawyer is the only one investigated in the case for a continued crime of aggravated forest fire that is being investigated by a court in Valencia. In fact, he was already arrested on October 25, just a few days after four fires once again burned part of El Saler. The

Civil Guard

had been tracking him for some time, since he was identified several times in the vicinity of the areas that burned and had a record: he was already arrested in 2000 and 2005 for two other fires.

The lawyer was brought before the court in October and his imprisonment was ordered. It wouldn't take him long to get out. In December he was released because investigators found no more incriminating evidence at his home and it was considered that there was no flight risk. Now, he was released from prison with a restraining order that prohibits him from approaching the Devesa forest, but not the entire natural park. His home, according to municipal sources, is located in the heart of El Saler. The same one he supposedly sets on fire.

That's why no one understands what could be going through the head of a man who is defined as "introverted" and even "lonely." This is what his neighbors say, who paradoxically are the people with whom he shares an urbanization - "we live in fear," says a retiree - and who have declared having seen him around the area that burned last week. What's more, the alleged arsonist was caught in mid-January carrying a bottle of paraffin, a highly flammable liquid. Again, just before another fire started.

The lawyer, however, has denied in court that he was the author of the last fire. He justified the purchase of paraffin, for example, to light a stove in his house. In his voluntary statement to address the rumors, he rejected any relationship with the events, despite the fact that even the Valencia City Council has directed suspicions against him.

When the firefighters were still acting on the fire declared on February 12, the council presented a document to the court to request the judge to geolocate the lawyer's mobile phone that same day. That is to say, what the City Council has asked is to verify whether the lawyer in question was in the area of ​​the fires when the flames started. Let the siege tighten, in short, on the lawyer whom everyone points out as the arsonist who is putting an entire natural park in Valencia at risk.