Man beaten up after threatening to detonate self in mosque in Turkey’s south
ADANA – Doğan News Agency
AA photo
A man was beaten up by the congregation of a central mosque on July 1 in the southern province of Adana after he shouted that he was about to detonate himself.The man, identified by the police as 33-year-old Mahmut Kılıçarslan from Diyarbakır, stood up during Friday prayers in the Sabancı Merkez Mosque and began to run toward the imam. According to reports, he grabbed the microphone and shouted “I will blow myself up.”
The congregation subsequently intervened against Kılıçarslan and beat him up. Police officers attending the Friday prayers stopped the group from lynching the suspect by using tear gas and detained him.
The mosque was later evacuated on suspicion of a bomb as teams searched inside the mosque and the Friday prayers at the mosque were canceled.
The man was wearing a belt that included gunpowder and iron beads. Police said the "amateur bomb" made by the man himself could harm only those very near if the man managed to detonate it.