Police in Minnesota are recommending that a suspect arrested in connection with a synagogue fire last week be charged with arson — while saying they do not believe the act was a hate crime.
Matthew James Amiot, 36, was arrested on Friday in connection with the blaze that engulfed the Adas Yisrael shul in the city of Duluth last week.
By the time firefighters extinguished the blaze, the 119-year old synagogue had suffered major structural damage.
In a press conference on Sunday, Mike Tusken, the city’s police chief, said that while the department would recommend a charge of first degree arson, “based on all the information I have viewed, I have read, the investigators I’ve talked to, there is at this moment in time no reason to believe that this was a bias or hate crime.”
