A man in his thirties, homeless and already convicted of setting fire to churches, was charged and imprisoned this Wednesday following the fire which ravaged part of the church of Saint-Omer.
A repeat homeless offender, already convicted of targeting churches: the suspect in the fire that partially destroyed a church in Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) on Monday morning, sparking strong emotion, was charged and imprisoned on Wednesday.
This man, born in 1985, with no profession and no fixed address, had just been released from prison on August 27, according to the public prosecutor of Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras.
On Wednesday, he was indicted for “destruction of property by means dangerous to people, committed because of race, ethnicity, nation or religion as a repeat offender and attempted burglary as a repeat offender.” A criminal qualification, which carries a penalty of 15 years in prison, 30 in the event of a repeat offence, the prosecutor stressed.
Already convicted of similar acts
Arrested on Monday, the thirty-year-old was placed in pre-trial detention. He admitted to “climbing into the church to burgle it” and explained that “before leaving the premises, he had decided to set fire to it”, the prosecutor explained in a press release.
The criminal record of the suspect, who was living in a shelter at the time of the events, includes 26 convictions, including two for destruction of property by dangerous means and one for damage or deterioration of a place of worship, following the arson of four churches in Boulogne in 2021.
His other convictions were for burglary, theft by deception or with damage, the prosecution lists.
Due to his criminal history, “psychiatric and psychological assessments will have to take place (…) in order to understand his exact motivations (…) in light of their repeat offences, particularly with regard to places of worship”, the prosecutor stressed.
“Priests are pointers”
During his trial for the burning of four churches in Pas-de-Calais in January 2022, the man explained that he had acted “because of [son] past”: abandoned by his parents and entrusted to a foster family, he had said he had been “raped” by his adoptive father “from the age of 5 to 6 and a half”.
“Every time I watch TV and all that, the priests are pointers (pedophiles, editor’s note). That’s why I attack the churches,” he declared.
According to the psychiatrist who examined him at the time, the defendant was suffering from “real psychological suffering” and “was looking to be in prison because he feels safer there than outside”.
According to prosecutor Guirec Le Bras, the accused did not make any statements of this nature after his arrest for the church of Saint-Omer.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, located in a suburb of Saint-Omer, was devastated by the fire that broke out on Monday around 4:30 a.m. This neo-Gothic church, inaugurated in 1859, had been restored between 2014 and 2018.
The fire destroyed the bell tower, which collapsed, as well as almost all of the roofs and the 19th-century Merklin organ inside. The Bishop of Arras Olivier Leborgne went to his forecourt on Wednesday morning for a “time of prayer and silence”, in the presence of some 300 people.
Around €16,000 already collected
“A religious building is a place that connects: it connects people to each other by uniting them with God,” the bishop said, according to a verbatim report sent to AFP.
“The emotion in the Haut-Pont district (a suburb of Saint-Omer) is significant,” stressed a representative of the diocese.
A kitty launched by the Heritage Foundation to participate in the reconstruction of the building had collected around 16,000 euros by the end of the day on Wednesday out of the 200,000 set as a target.
The fire at this church has sparked strong emotion on social networks. Elon Musk himself relayed a conspiracy message on X on Monday accompanied by a video of the burning bell tower, questioning the criminal nature of the disaster.
The mayor of Saint-Omer, François Decoster, sent him in return, also on X, the link to the kitty.
