Police Arrest Suspect In Shooting Of French Priest

Police Arrest Suspect In Shooting Of French Priest

An attacker armed with a sawn-off shotgun on Saturday wounded a Greek Orthodox priest in a shooting in the French city of Lyon, a police source said.

Nikolaos Kakavelaki, 52, was closing his church mid-afternoon when he was attacked and is now in a serious condition in hospital, said the source, who asked not to be named.

The attacker fled the scene but later Lyon’s public prosecutor Nicolas Jacquet announced that a suspect had been arrested.

“A person who could correspond to the description given by the initial witnesses has been placed in policy custody,” said Jacquet, adding that the suspect had not been carrying a weapon when he was arrested.

The motive for the attack wasn’t clear but it comes at a time when France is already on edge over the killing of three people inside a church and the beheading of a teacher who showed a class a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed.

The priest was shot twice in the chest at point-blank range, according to sources close to the enquiry.

Witnesses heard the gunshots then “saw an individual fleeing and discovered a man with gunshot wounds at the back door of the church,” the Lyon prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The interior ministry said that “security and emergency personnel are at the scene,” warning people to “avoid the area” where the attack took place. The search for the assailant was underway.

– ‘Europe won’t bow to terrorism’ –

Reacting to Saturday’s attack, EU Parliament President David Sassoli said that “Europe will never bow to violence and terrorism”.

The Assembly of Orthodox Bishops in France said it “condemned such acts of violence that threaten lives and spread a general climate of insecurity”.

The small Orthodox church is situated in a residential area of Lyon which was especially quiet due to the new lockdown measures introduced in France on Friday to stem the growing coronavirus pandemic.

In Paris, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin opened a crisis cell meeting to consider the situation.

Prime Minister Jean Castex spoke of “the government’s determination to allow each and everyone to practice their worship in complete safety and in complete freedom.”

The shooting comes just days after three people were killed in a knife rampage inside a church in the southern town of Nice.