On January 24, he set fire to his apartment, in a Domofrance residence, rue Martin-du-Gard, in Cenon. The accommodation was devastated, two others suffered significant damage. Twenty tenants were urgently evacuated and relocated to a gymnasium. “Luckily it didn’t happen in the middle of the night, the toll could have been much heavier,” said the fire chief during the investigation.
This very quickly turned to Wael Rabia. An hour before the fire, he threatened to “burn everything”. He had presented himself in a Domofrance agency, very upset. “I want you to move me immediately. If it’s not done during the day, I go home and burn everything, ”he said in front of an employee. She had tried to calm him down, explaining to him that a change of accommodation does not materialize in a snap of the fingers and that he was not a priority, living alone. The firefighters then found him with his suitcases ready, his apartment in flames, but emptied.
“Its place is in psychiatry”
Arrested the same day, Wael Rabia has always denied intentionally setting the fire. “It’s an accident. I had no interest in this fire. I was not insured and I was no longer paying my rent. To his judges, he speaks of “the bad luck that [le] pursues” and proposes “hypotheses”. In “one”, that of the “stick of incense fallen on the carpet”. In “two”, that of the “short circuit” and, in “three”, that of the “forest fire”. In police custody, he had mentioned “natural or supernatural circumstances”, which led the prosecution to request a psychiatric expertise. She concluded that there was a possible impairment of discernment linked to “personality disorders, a complicated life course and poor contact with reality”.
“He plunged into the irrational. He’s convinced himself that people want to harm him.”
“Social landlords are at the forefront of obvious social issues. This file is a sad illustration of this, ”points out Me Jean Gonthier, Domofrance’s lawyer, who requests a referral on civil interests in order to quantify the damage. Undoubtedly, it will amount to several thousand euros.
“My client is trying to hide it from you, but he hasn’t been well for several months. Since he lost his job as a temporary truck driver after an accident, exposes Me Kanane, in defense. He combines financial and health problems. Faced with this, he plunged into the irrational. He has convinced himself that people are out to harm him and have broken into his home. The day before the incident, firefighters intervened at his home, because of a water leak, in his absence. This was the tipping point, the proof, for him, that people were entering his apartment. His place is not in prison but in a psychiatric hospital. »
–
