PARIS (AP) — A priest was killed in a small town in western France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday, adding that he was heading to the Vendee region after the “dramatic assassination.”

Details of the killing, reportedly in the town of Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre, were not immediately available.

The French press, citing police, reported that a man turned himself into a nearby gendarmerie, saying that he had killed a cleric and that it was the man under judicial control for the fire at the 15th century Nantes cathedral in July 2020 which destroyed the organ and shattered stain glass windows.

A church volunteer from Rwanda seeking political asylum admitted he had set three fires. He had been tasked with locking up the cathedral. He was not imprisoned while that investigation moves forward but must report to police regularly. Under the terms of his judicial control, he was lodged by the religious community in the locale where the priest was killed, BFMTV reported, citing law enforcement officials.

The Associated Press