A man wearing a veil was arrested following suspicions of being a suicide bomber only for the police to discover he was only on a romantic mission.
A man detained as a suspected would-be suicide bomber in northern Turkey was actually wearing a burqa (veil) to disguise himself to meet a secret lover from a dating site.
Locals in the Black Sea province of Ordu alerted police of a 'would-be suicide bomber' on Saturday. The alarm was raised after a burqa-clad 'woman' was spotted talking on the phone at a bus stop and was wearing men's shoes.
A police team arrived at the scene and 'unmasked' the man, who was dressed in a full-length, Islamic- style black robe with a niqab - the head covering worn by many Muslim women - covering his face. Authorities detained him for 'inflicting fear and panic in the public, local news agency, Dogan reported.
The 33-year-old man, who has not been named, is thought to be married with two children. He told police that he had resorted to the burqa disguise in order to secretly meet a woman he had met on an online dating site for the first time.
Turkey is on high alert after a series of deadly attacks blamed on the ISIS jihadist group, including a massive twin suicide bombing at a peace rally in Ankara on October 10 that killed 102 people in the worst-ever terror attack in Turkey's history.