Catholic priest killed by suspected cathedral arsonist
A priest was killed Monday in a small town in western France and the suspect is a man he had housed for months, a local religious leader said. The suspect is the same man who caused a major fire that ravaged the cathedral in the French city of Nantes last year, local media reported.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed the killing, adding that he was heading to the Vendee region after the "dramatic assassination."
French gendarmes walk where a French catholic priest, aged 60, has been murdered in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevres, Western France, on August 9, 2021. SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images La Roche-sur-Yon prosecutor Yannick Le Goater told reporters police had found the body of 60-year-old Olivier Maire, head of the Montfortain Missionary Order at Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, Reuters reported.
The French press, citing police, reported that a man turned himself in, saying that he had killed a cleric Monday morning. French media said the suspect was the man under judicial control for the fire at the 15th-century Nantes cathedral in July 2020, which destroyed the organ and shattered stain glass windows.
Firefighters are at work to put out a fire at the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral in Nantes, western France, on July 18, 2020. SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images A church volunteer from Rwanda seeking political asylum admitted he had set three fires. He had been tasked with locking up the cathedral. He was not imprisoned while that investigation moves forward but must report to police regularly. Under the terms of his judicial control, he was lodged by the religious community in the locale where the priest was killed, BFMTV reported, citing law enforcement officials.
The head of the religious community of Montfort, Santino Brambilla, confirmed to BFMTV that the slain priest had housed the suspect who killed him for several months.
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"This is a human drama, but the suffering is great," Brambilla said.
There was no immediate indication that the slaying was linked to terrorism, like the 2016 killing of Rev. Jacques Hamel as he said Mass in his church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, outside Rouen. The Islamic State organization claimed responsibility for that slaying.
Last October, a sacristan and two faithful were knifed to death inside the basilica in Nice, attributed to an Islamist extremist.
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