The Orthodox priest who was shot twice in the abdomen at his Greek Orthodox Church in Lyons was the victim of an angry husband whose wife the priest had shared a bed with.
Nikolaos Kakavelakis, a 52-year-old father of two, was initially seen as the latest victim of Islamic terrorism in France after being shot with a sawed-off shotgun on Oct. 31. But now that Kakavelakis has awakened from his coma, he could be heard by the French police, the priest said that the man who tried to kill him was a love rival.
Nicolas Jacquet, the Lyon prosecutor, stated on Saturday that the attacker ‘turns out to be the husband of a woman who had an affair with the victim’. In the meantime, an investigation has been started into “attempted murder” and the priest’s mistress, a 35-year-old woman of Russian descent, is also in custody, according to the prosecutor.
The shooter is a 40-year-old Georgian national who lives close to the Greek Orthodox Church, in the 7th arrondissement of Lyon. He has confessed to shooting Kakavelakis while the priest locked his church, then leaving him for “dead”. After the shooting, the shooter ran home and thought he would get away with his “crime passion”, until priest Kakavelakis turned out to have survived the shooting. The suspect was arrested at his home last Friday and now has a ‘full confession‘his wife was arrested at the same time.
Father Kakavelakis, a Greek citizen who had been a priest in Lyons for the past ten years, had quit this job at the Greek Orthodox Church a month ago and was working out his notice period.
The attack on the priest in Lyon came two days after three people were murdered in a terrorist attack in the Roman Catholic Notre Dame basilica in the southern French city of Nice. The culprit, of Tunisian descent, was shot by the French police upon his arrest.
Last month, schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by a Chechen terrorist after showing Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in his class as part of a lesson on “free speech.
This led many to believe that the Lyon attack was also linked to terrorism, but that has now been ruled out by the French authorities.
Also see:Priest (52) shot in Lyon, arrested suspect released
Christian priest was shot twice and left for dead outside Greek Orthodox church in Lyon https://t.co/mbKfkZH1HQ
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) November 8, 2020
Lyon shooting: Suspect admits attacking priest ‘over affair’
“The 40-year-old suspect told prosecutors the priest was having an affair with his wife.”https://t.co/gt3A6COf7P
– Jean-Marie Frentz (@jm_frentz) November 8, 2020
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