World fire news: Man cleared of starting Table Mountain blaze

Cape Town - A British tourist accused of starting a devastating fire on South Africa's Table Mountain, in which another UK tourist died, was cleared by a regional court today.

The court criticised the prosecution for failing to present their case against Anthony Cooper properly.

Since his arrest on January 26 2006, 38-year-old Cooper, from Swansea, has always insisted that the fire, if his fault at all, was an accident.

It was alleged he started the blaze, which devastated large areas of the mountain, by throwing a cigarette butt onto dry grassy ground. He was also charged with culpable homicide after the fire caused the death of 65-year-old Janet Chesworth.

Cooper denied that he had thrown a cigarette butt on the ground, but said in evidence that a piece of a match he had used to light a cigarette could have "shot off" and sparked the fire.

Regional court magistrate Wilma van der Merwe today said that even though she did not consider Cooper to be a good witness, prosecutors had failed to prove their case in many crucial ways.

She said there had been three significant failures on the side of the prosecution:

· Prosecutors failed to call a forensic specialist to explain to the court how something as small as a cigarette butt or a piece of a match could have started the fire. "In my mind, as a layperson, a piece of cinder [was] not going to stay alight in that wind," she said.

· Providing the forensic pathologist Sonata Del Raven with Chesworth's medical history, which could have assisted the prosecution in proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the only cause of Chesworth's death was the fire.

· Prosecutor Nation Loliwe's failure to cross-examine Cooper properly.

Van der Merwe said she could not find any "real sign of consistency," in Cooper's evidence.

She told the court he had said that a piece of the match he had used had "shot off" but, under cross-examination, had said that the whole match went "flying out the window".

The magistrate added that, looking at the evidence as a whole, "the only reasonable inference one can draw is that Cooper started the fire". However, she said was not enough because the state had failed to prove he had started the blaze either intentionally or negligently.

Cooper said he planned to get his passport back as quickly as he could and then take the first available flight back to Wales.

"His dad is waiting for the phone call to say that he has been acquitted," his lawyer, Joe Weeber, said.

Cooper has spent almost two years in South Africa waiting for his trial to be finalized, and Weeber added: "Maybe now will be a good time to stop smoking."

Speaking outside the Cape Town regional court building, Cooper said he was delighted at the outcome of the case. He thanked the people of Cape Town for their support, saying they had been "wonderful".

Source: Guardian Unlimited - Estelle Ellis