The 47-year-old man in police custody after the fire in a building that claimed the lives of three people on Sunday in Grasse, in the Alpes-Maritimes, admitted “being at the origin of the fire”, but “involuntarily”, having thrown “an unextinguished cigarette”, according to the prosecution on Tuesday.

This man with no criminal record, who had initially denied any involvement in the occurrence of the fire, mentioned “during his last hearing” the “throwing of an unextinguished cigarette in the entrance hall of the building “Said the prosecutor of the Republic of Grasse, Damien Savarzeix, in a press release.

The suspect will be brought before an investigating judge with a view to the opening of a judicial investigation for “willful damage by fire having caused death, willful damage by fire having caused permanent disability, willful damage by fire having caused total interruption of work for more than eight days, and willful damage by fire, “said the prosecution, who will request his placement in pre-trial detention.

“The psychiatric examination carried out during police custody concludes, at this stage, the full criminal responsibility of the person implicated”, according to the same source.

The three victims ‘still being identified’

As of Monday, the Grasse public prosecutor’s office had explained that it favored “the thesis of human intervention” for this fire, the first findings of the expert on the scene having made it possible to “dismiss a loss of accidental origin”.

The man in police custody had been arrested in the early evening on Sunday, after “the exploitation of the city’s video surveillance” which had made it possible to locate “an individual leaving the building two minutes before the cameras detected a start fire,” at 2:49 a.m. Sunday morning, the prosecutor explained in a previous statement.

The three victims who died in this five-storey building located in the historic center of Grasse, two women and a man, “are still being identified, in particular by means of DNA expertise”, added the prosecution on Tuesday. Two of them perished in the flames and another, who had probably jumped out of the window to try to escape the fire, had been found unresponsive by firefighters in front of the building.

Three people were also seriously injured in the fire, one of whom was still in “vital emergency” on Monday, according to the prosecution. The situation of this victim was not specified on Tuesday.

The center of Grasse, a city known for its perfume industry, has a high rate of poverty, but renovation operations have been carried out there for years. The building where the fire broke out had, like other buildings in the historic center, been given formal notice to speed up the renovation work by the municipality.