Migrant Stabs Priest to Death after Being Released for Burning Down Cathedral
'The priest is 60 years old and had welcomed the suspect into his community'
© press
A migrant who confessed to burning down France's Nantes Cathedral later stabbed a 60-year-old priest to death not long after police released him, reports say.
Emmanuel Abayisenga, 40, from Rwanda, confessed to stabbing Father Olivier Maire to death in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, south of the city close to where he set the cathedral on fire last year.
President Emmanuel Macron’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, said:
“All my support for the Catholics of our country after the dramatic murder of a priest in the Vendee region."
© press
In comments quoted by AFP, opposition leader Marine Le Pen said in response to the killing:
"You can be an illegal migrant, set fire to a cathedral, not be expelled and then re-offend by murdering a priest.”
A fire in the 15-century cathedral in the French city of Nantes blew out stained-glass windows and destroyed the grand organ https://t.co/Xgn4tVsFNy pic.twitter.com/ELlwbnxb9Y
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 18, 2020
“The priest is 60 years old and had welcomed the suspect into his community after he was released from prison,” an investigating source said of the killing.
“[The suspect] was recently placed under judicial control and went to live in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre,” the source added.
© press
“He said to have carried out the killing on Monday morning before handing himself in to police.”
Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in #Nantes, #France.
— Derek (@DinosaurDerek) July 18, 2020
Catholics and the rest of the west are asleep. Will this rouse them? When will be the tipping point?
pic.twitter.com/mNgY8j3cAj
The migrant is believed to have worked for the diocese and was angry about having his visa expiring.
At the time, prosecutors warned it would be “premature and hasty” to lay blame on the migrant for the blaze.
Cathedral clerk, Jean-Charles Nowak, defended the unnamed migrant, saying he “adores” the building.
“I don’t believe for a second that he could have set the cathedral on fire,” Nowak said.
