The migrant who confessed to starting a devastating fire at Nantes Cathedral has stabbed a 60-year-old priest to death after being released, according to reports.
40-year-old migrant Emmanuel Abayisenga, from Rwanda, has reportedly confessed to stabbing Father Olivier Maire to death in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre, south of the city where he set the historic cathedral on fire last year.
“All my support for the Catholics of our country after the dramatic murder of a priest in the Vendee region,” said President Emmanuel Macron’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, in comments shared on social media, adding that he was en route to the scene.
The killing has incensed national populist opposition leader Marine Le Pen, who lamented the fact that “you can be an illegal migrant, set fire to a cathedral, not be expelled and then reoffend by murdering a priest” in comments quoted by AFP.
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, as reported by The Sun.
“[The suspect] was recently placed under judicial control, and went to live in Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre,” the source added.
“He said to have carried out the killing on Monday morning, before handing himself into police.”
The source painted a slightly different picture of the killing, however, suggesting the migrant appeared to have “beaten his victim to death”, according to early evidence.
This story is developing…
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