In the court on Thursday. | Juan P. Martínez

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A 39-year-old Moroccan is to be expelled from Spain for a period of six years after pleading guilty to two acts of arson.

On Thursday, a court in Palma sentenced him to eighteen months in prison. This will be substituted by the expulsion. He admitted the offences, and the Prosecutor's Office took account of a defence plea that he had been suffering from a delusional disorder.

In March 2021, he twice set fire to a squat on C. Reyes Católicos in Palma. On March 22, shortly after seven in the morning, he set fire to a pile of objects that he had stacked in a corner of the third-floor room which he had been using. Among other items, there were clothes, plastics and bottles of deodorant. Three crews from the Palma Fire Brigade went to the scene. Firefighters and Palma police had to evacuate six people.

He returned the next day. At 12.30pm, he set fire to a mattress that was on a sprung bed base. Squatters again needed to be evacuated. No one was harmed. Hours later he was arrested.