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Nantes cathedral fire: volunteer arrested and charged with arson Nantes cathedral fire: church volunteer confesses to starting blaze
(about 8 hours later)
The 39-year-old who closed the cathedral for the night had previously been questioned and released by police 39-year-old who closed cathedral for the night has been arrested and charged with arson
A volunteer assistant suspected of setting a French cathedral on fire has been rearrested, then indicted and detained in pre-trial custody by prosecutors. A volunteer church assistant has confessed to setting the fire that severely damaged a Gothic cathedral in Nantes, western France, his lawyer said Sunday.
The man, already held and released by police last week, was indicted on Saturday night “on charges of destruction and damage by fire” of the gothic cathedral of Nantes, the public prosecutor for the western city said. The 39-year-old, an asylum-seeker from Rwanda who has lived in France for several years, was arrested on Saturday after laboratory analysis determined that arson was the likely cause of the blaze, the local prosecutor’s office said.
The fire broke out on July 18, hours after the volunteer altar server had closed up the building for the night. “My client has cooperated,” the man’s lawyer, Quentin Chabert, told the Presse-Ocean newspaper, without elaborating on motives for attempting to burn down the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Prosecutors launched an arson investigation into the blaze, which they said appeared to have hit three different parts of the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul. “He bitterly regrets his actions … My client is consumed with remorse,” Chabert said.
Police investigating the incident had arrested the 39-year-old Rwandan national and then released him last week. Prosecutors opened an arson inquiry following the early morning fire on 18 July, after finding that it broke out in three different places in the church, which the volunteer had locked up the night before.
His lawyer said at the time there was nothing directly linking his client to the fire. He was taken in for questioning the next day but later released without charge, with the cathedral’s rector saying: “I trust him like I trust all the helpers.”
But following developments in the inquiry, the man was rearrested on Saturday and later appeared before a judge in the city, prosecutor Pierre Sennes said in a statement. But Nantes prosecutor Pierre Sennes said in a statement on Saturday the man had been charged with “destruction and damage by fire”, and faced up to 10 years in prison and €150,000 euros (£136,000) in fines.
The blaze came just 15 months after a devastating fire tore through the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. “He admitted during his first appearance for questioning before the investigating judge that he set three fires in the cathedral: at the main organ, the smaller organ and the electrical panel,” Sennes said.
It destroyed the Nantes congregation’s famed organ, which dated from 1621 and had survived the French revolution and bombardment during the second world war. The blaze came 15 months after the devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which raised questions about the security risks for other historic churches across France.
Also lost were priceless artefacts and paintings, including a work by 19th-century artist Hippolyte Flandrin and stained-glass windows that contained remnants of 16th-century glass. While firefighters were able to contain the Nantes blaze after just two hours and save its main structure, the famed organ, which dated from 1621 and had survived the French revolution and second world war bombardment, was destroyed.
Also lost were priceless artefacts and paintings, including a work by the 19th-century artist Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin and stained glass windows that contained remnants of 16th-century glass.
Work on the cathedral began in 1434 and continued over the following centuries until 1891.
It had already been damaged by a more serious fire in 1972, when officials added concrete reinforcements while redoing the roof over the next 13 years.
The French government has said it will ensure the cathedral’s restoration. Philippe Charron, head of the regional DRAC state heritage agency said very few, if any, elements of the main organ were likely to be saved.
“It will take several weeks to secure the site … and several months of inspections that will be carried out stone by stone,” he said. He added that reconstruction would take several years.