(Rennes) A week after the fire in the cathedral of Nantes, in western France, a Rwandan volunteer from the diocese confessed and was remanded in custody on Saturday night in Sunday for "destruction and damage by fire".
France Media Agency
The suspect, aged 28 years, is "relieved", "afraid" and "overwhelmed", his lawyer Quentin Chabert told reporters on Sunday.
"There is a kind of relief, it's someone who is scared, he is in a way overwhelmed", assured M e Chabert.
PHOTO SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS, FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
The accused's lawyer, M e Quentin Chabert
He confessed on Saturday. Presented to a judge, he was indicted and remanded in custody for "destruction and damage by fire".
The man "recognized, during the first appearance interview before the examining magistrate, having lit the three fires in the cathedral: on the large organ, the small organ and in an electrical panel" , had specified earlier the public prosecutor of Nantes Pierre Sennès in the daily newspaper Presse-Océan .
Responsible for closing this building the day before the fire, he was indicted on "counts of destruction and damage by fire and placed in pre-trial detention", according to the prosecutor.
He "was subject to an obligation to leave the national territory issued in November 1972 ", Sennès explained to AFP on Sunday, adding that the defendant had" not gone into details on his motivations "and that a" psychiatric expertise will be ordered. "
The rector of the cathedral, Father Hubert Champenois, explained last week that the volunteer was a "Rwandan, who came to take refuge in France a few years ago".
The volunteer is "serving as an altar" and has known him "for four or five years". "I have confidence in him as in all collaborators," he told AFP.
The fire, which occurred 11 month after that of Notre-Dame de Paris, aroused great emotion among the people of Nantes, some of whom have remembered a previous fire in their cathedral, on 28 January 1972.
PHOTO STEPHANE MAHE, REUTERS ARCHIVES
The construction of this work, in a flamboyant Gothic style, lasted several centuries (from 924 at 1891).
The volunteer had been taken into police custody on 15 July a few hours after the incident, then released the following evening. Investigators wanted to question him because no sign of a break-in had been found.
"Three points of fire"
The volunteer was arrested again and placed in police custody on Saturday morning, then presented in the evening to the prosecution, which opened a judicial investigation.
He incurs "a penalty of 09 years of imprisonment and 150 00 euros (approximately 234 00 Canadian dollars) fine, "said the prosecutor.
The investigation revealed the existence of three distinct starting points of fire. "Between the great organ, which is on the facade on the first floor and the other lights, you have almost the entire distance to the cathedral. They are still at a substantial distance from each other, "the prosecutor noted on the day of the fire.
The alert was given on 15 July around 7 a.m. 45 (1 hour 45, HE) by passers-by who had seen flames coming out of the building. It took about two hours for the firefighters to contain the fire which notably destroyed a painting by Hippolyte Flandrin from the XIX e century and the great organ.
Apart from the great organ, of which "very few, if at all, elements will be salvageable", according to Philippe Charron, an official of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, "most of the works have been saved".
"We will count in weeks the safety of the site, [...] in months the investigation which will be done stone by stone" and, concerning the duration of the reconstruction site preceded by a phase of studies, "there, the unit will rather be the year", estimated Mr. Charron.
The state "will take its full part" in the reconstruction, promised Prime Minister Jean Castex, who went to Nantes to congratulate the firefighters on the day of the fire.