TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 40-year-old woman for allegedly setting fire to a relative’s home in Itabashi Ward last month, reports Jiji Press (Nov. 19).
At around 9:35 a.m. on October 3, Hiromi Kawashima, of no known occupation, allegedly used some means to set fire to the inside of the home on the first floor.
The fire was extinguished approximately three hours later, but about 17.5 square meters of the living room was burned, police said.
Upon her arrest on suspicion of suspicion of arson of an inhabited structure on Wednesday, Kawashima denied the allegations. “I didn’t do it,” she said.
Kawashima was alone in the house at the time of the fire. Immediately after the fire started, the suspect escaped through a window. “Fire!” shouted. A construction worker nearby who heard her screams called emergency services.
During voluntary questioning immediately after the fire, she said, “I don’t know why it caught fire.” However, an investigation at the scene revealed that the cause of the fire was arson, which led to her arrest.
Tokyo police are investigating the incident as possibly being the result of a family dispute. Kawashima sometimes stopped by the relative’s house when her husband was in the hospital. When the fire started, she was alone at the the house.
