Rwanda refugee charged in arson attack on 15th-century French cathedral

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Rwanda refugee charged in arson attack on 15th-century French cathedral

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A Rwandan refugee and church volunteer admitted to setting three fires in an arson attack that badly damaged a 15th-century Gothic cathedral in western France earlier this month, his lawyer confirmed.

The July 18 blaze destroyed the organ, shattered stained-glass windows, and blackened the insides of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul of the western French city of Nantes.

Nantes prosecutor Pierre Sennes said the unidentified 39-year-old Rwandan asylum seeker was a volunteer at the cathedral and had been tasked with the job of locking up when he lit three fires: two on cathedral organs and one on an electrical box.

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The fire broke the main stained-glass windows between the cathedral's two towers and destroyed its main organ. Added in the 17th century, the organ was called the “soul of the cathedral” by the faithful and had survived the French Revolution and World War II bombardment. The organ also previously survived a serious fire in 1972, which annihilated much of its wooden structures.

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