Over five years for arsonists

Amid the destruction wreaked by wildfires across the country this week, Justice Minister Kostas Tsiaras said Thursday that arson will be charged as a felony and perpetrators will receive prison sentences of over five years.

He tweeted that stricter punishments for dangerous crimes were proposed at the last cabinet meeting.

“The environmental damage caused by forest arson is for the first time explicitly standardized as a crime and the perpetrators will be punished with imprisonment,” he wrote.

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras also called “for rapid legislative measures against arsonists,” stressing the state should ensure that burnt forest areas are reforested so “we do not see buildings sprout where there were once forests.”