The family of an Israeli tourist accused of starting a massive forest fire in a Chilean national park say the authorities are making him a scapegoat.
Twenty-three-year-old Rotem Singer’s relatives in Israel say he could not have caused the blaze.
A 27,000 acre expanse of pristine forest has already burned in the Torres del Paine national park in southern Chile.
Hundreds of firefighters are still tackling the blaze.
Mr Singer was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of causing the fire through negligence, by failing to properly extinguish a toilet roll he had been burning.
Chilean prosecutor Juan Melendez said the Israeli had acknowledged his role in allowing the fire to start.
However, Mr Singer’s family say he is innocent.
“He could not have caused this disaster. He was a kilometre away from the fire when his friends woke him up,” Hezi Singer, the tourist’s father, told Israeli radio.
“The Chilean authorities are looking for a scapegoat,” he added.
Rotem Singer’s grandfather, Gilad Harel, told an Israeli newspaper that the allegations were bizarre.
He is “a responsible person, who served in a combat unit in the army”, Mr Harel told Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
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2 Responses
אוי לנו מיום הדין, אוי לנו מיום התוכחה
There are signs all over Patagonia (both on the Chilean and Argentine sides of the border) warning of the fire risks. As anyone who has hiked in those areas will tell you, the signs are in English, Spanish, German and Hebrew (yes, thats how many hikers and tourists from EY visit these areas). If there are witnesses implicating him in the fire, and there appear to be some of his chevrah who have said he started a fire nearby) than his negligence could be a basis for these charges. Lets wait for the evidence before convicting him.