• Fire at Nantes cathedral, sacristan released
  • Photos of the fire at Nantes Cathedral

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July 25, 2020 The volunteer who was arrested the day after the fire of July 18 at the Nantes cathedral, and then freed for lack of clues, was arrested again today and then appeared in the prosecutor's office, after the first findings of the expert reports laboratory workers have revived the hypothesis of arson, of the criminal act. This was announced in the evening by the prosecutor of the Republic of the city of Loire, Pierre Sennès. 

Now the prosecutor's office, which had the 39-year-old volunteer Emanuel, originally from Rwanda, provisionally returned to his cell, has opened a file for "deterioration or destruction of other people's property by fire". 

If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a 150,000 euro fine.
The flames destroyed in particular the organ of the Gothic cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, to complete which took over 400 years of work, which began under the Duke of Brittany John V in 1434 and completed only in 1891. 

Damaged by the war in 1944, the cathedral suffered a serious fire due to a technical accident in 1972 and it took 13 years to reopen it to the public.