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FRANCE-FIRE
Woman with history of psychiatric care charged over deadly Paris fire
PARIS, Feb 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A woman with a history of psychiatric
problems has been charged with starting a fire in a Paris apartment building
in which ten people died, French prosecutors said.
The Paris prosecutor said the suspect, who has been held in a police
psychiatric facility since her arrest, was charged on Friday with arson
“resulting in death”.
Tuesday’s fire on the upper floors of a building in the upscale 16th Paris
district was the deadliest in the capital since 2005.
Thirty people were also hurt in the blaze, which ravaged much of the back
of the building.
The suspect in her 40s, who lived in the building, had been treated a dozen
times in psychiatric facilities in Paris over the past decade.
Just six days before the deadly blaze she was allowed out of a clinic after
a doctor declared her fit to leave following a 12-day stay, prosecutor Remy
Heitz told a press conference earlier this week.
Dramatic footage of the night-time fire showed flames shooting out of
windows and firemen climbing narrow ladders to rescue terrified residents,
some dressed only in pyjamas, from the top of the eight-storey block.
The suspect had repeated run-ins with a neighbour, who is a fireman, and
was again involved in a dispute with him just before the fire broke out,
police said.
She was “intoxicated when detained and attempting to set fire to a car”,
police said.
The woman had already been in trouble with police, including once for
causing damage by fire, but she was never convicted.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0856 hrs