An '
arson
' broke out overnight Saturday-Sunday at St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town where the ashes of anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu were buried, it has been announced. a church official.
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The fire was detected in the basement of a section of the cathedral around 2 a.m. (midnight GMT).
“
The fire was arson
,” Fr. Michael Weeder, dean of the cathedral, said in a note to his parish on Sunday.
It “
appears that a lit piece of cotton/gauze was thrown through the small barred window near the steps leading to the
” main entrance of the cathedral, he said.
“
Someone was seen running away from the cathedral
,” he added.
The firefighters quickly extinguished the fire and apart from "
traces of smoke (...) no sign of damage is visible
", he continued.
The ashes of Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner who died on December 26 at the age of 90, were buried on January 2 in Saint-Georges Cathedral.
The building is located not far from the Parliament, which was burned down the very day of his burial.
A man suspected of being the arsonist in the Houses of Parliament fire is in custody awaiting trial after his bail request was denied on Friday.