College students are arrested in Ala. church fires

Investigators said the fires didn't seem to be a conspiracy against religion.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Three college students, including two aspiring actors known around campus as pranksters, were arrested Wednesday in a string of nine church fires across Alabama last month.
Federal agents said the defendants claimed that the first few blazes were set as a joke and that the others were started to throw investigators off the track.
Gov. Bob Riley said the fires did not appear to be "any type of conspiracy against organized religion" or the Baptist faith. With the arrests, he said, "the faith-based community can rest a little easier."
Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, appeared in federal court and were ordered held on church arson charges pending a hearing Friday. Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20-year-old junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was also arrested.
Top priority
The fires broke out at five Baptist churches in Bibb County south of Birmingham on Feb. 3 and four Baptist churches in west Alabama on Feb. 7. The federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency had made the investigation its top priority, with scores of federal agents joining state and local officers.
"While all three are entitled to have their day in court, we are very hopeful that this is the end to the fear that has been rampant in West Alabama," said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.