A French woman convicted of causing a hotel fire that killed 24 people including 11 children walked free on Tuesday after an appeals court reduced her sentence. The Paris court eased the jail term for Fatima Tahrour given by a lower court in January 2014 from three years to two, opening the way for alternatives such as house arrest or electronic monitoring. The night-time inferno, the deadliest in the city since the 1944 liberation of Paris during World War II, gutted the Paris-Opera Hotel in April 2005.

Tahrour, who was 31 at the time, admitted accidentally causing the fire during a fight with her then-boyfriend, Nabil Dekali, a night watchman at the hotel. In a fit of anger, she flung some clothes on some burning candles and stormed out. Dekali, who had taken cocaine and alcohol, was accused of not contacting firemen immediately and trying to douse the flames himself. The mother of one of the victims screamed "You killed my baby" when the ruling was pronounced, prompting the judge to clear the court.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016