A 37-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested on Wednesday at his workplace in Taipa for setting fire to a beehive at the base of a footbridge near the Lago public housing estate as “he had been stung by bees”, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok said during a regular press conference yesterday.
At 11:12 p.m. on Tuesday, according to a PJ statement on Wednesday, the Judiciary Police received a report from the Fire Services Bureau (CB) that a beehive at the bottom of a footbridge off Estrada Padre Estevão Eusébio Sítu in Taipa had been burnt, requesting PJ officers to investigate the suspicious fire.
A PJ investigation, Ho said, identified the suspect, a non-resident worker, surnamed Nguyen, who had attached a butane gas canister to a four-metre-long metal pole and burnt the hive after lighting it with a lighter at the scene earlier that day.
Under questioning, the suspect, who told the police that he works as a cleaner, said that he had been stung on the hands by bees in the vicinity on Monday.
Nguyen has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing an arson charge, Ho noted.
