Church volunteer admits to setting French cathedral on fire

PanARMENIAN.Net - The lawyer of a volunteer at a Gothic cathedral in western France's Nantes town said he confessed to setting the building on fire that severely damaged its 17th-century organ and blew out stained glass, Al Jazeera reports.

The 39-year-old accused, an asylum seeker from Rwanda who has lived in France for several years, was arrested earlier this month after laboratory analysis determined that arson was the likely cause of the blaze, the local prosecutor's office said.

"My client has cooperated," lawyer Quentin Chabert told the Presse-Ocean newspaper on Sunday, July 26, without elaborating on motives for attempting to burn down the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

"He bitterly regrets his actions ... My client is consumed with remorse," Chabert said.

Prosecutors opened an arson inquiry after the early morning fire on July 18 after finding that it broke out in three different places in the church, which the volunteer had locked up the night before.

He was taken in for questioning the next day but later released without charge.