Pastor Terry Jones attends a court hearing
Terry Jones, 61, was detained in the town of Mulberry, near Tampa, and faces charges of transporting fuel illegally and openly carrying a firearm, the Orlando Sentinel said.
Deputies said Jones was riding in a pickup truck that was towing a trailer carrying a large barbecue like grill filled with kerosene soaked copies of the Holy Quran. He also had extra bottles of the fuel inside the truck bed, the Sentinel reported.
Jones's planned public burning of the holy book came with tensions high in the Middle East, and with possible international military action in Syria still on the table having been touted by US President Barack Obama.
According to Jones's website, he had plans to burn 2,998 copies of the Holy Quran in the Tampa Bay area on Wednesday, in recognition of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Jones was arrested alongside Associate Pastor Marvin Sapp minutes before the scheduled burning, the Sentinel said.
As pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, Jones in 2010 threatened to burn copies of the Holy Quran, drawing widespread outrage in the United States and abroad, before he called the plan off.
In 2011, however, his congregation did burn the holy book and the following year he promoted an anti-Islam film. All three incidents sparked violence in the Middle East and in Afghanistan and came despite pleas from US military officials to desist.
COMMENTS (16)
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@Singh, sorry your friend Terry Jones is in jail, but no reason to get upset. When will India give justice to Gujarati Muslims massacred by Modi? Jones got what he deserved, now stop obsessing over Pakistan.
15 days in jail for him
America has ONE Terry Jones.....................how many do we have ???
Only an uneducated man can do this.
Well at least he is behind bars. I hope Islam knows that most of us westerners are not like this guy, it is just that the hate-filled ones like him get news coverage. Very few of us would ever think of doing something like he had planned.
Lets give peace a chance.
@Blunt: He is a bigot,indeed,and deserves punishment. But kindly tell me if you,government,law enforcement,courts,media(except ET)and intelligentsia took a notice even of maulvis ,alongwith other high profile bigots,openly calling for chasing and killing Ahmadis,boycotting them,isolate them and ban them, on Article 2 anniversary just a few days ago.
The Pastor will burn ridiculously even after
Lets have a demonstration and burn down half of Islamabad because of something that happened 10,000 miles away .
We can learn from the West and should not allow the extremists to take hostage the entire nation. And the West should learn from us and try to nip the evil in the bud before its too late. As it is gor us.
He should be hanged rather.
The west dont want this to happen either...thats why he is behind bars....
@Pakistan Meri Jan I agree this guy just make we angry looking at him.
Here, A molvi threatens to kill every single shia in the country and still roams free Long live USA Long live their justice system
ET please remove his Photo, Thank you So much in advance
Balanced minds in the West need to work hard to first work on their on extrimism roots .. then about rest of the world