Bin Laden prankster gets shot
2004-12-15 13:06
San Jose, Costa Rica - Osama bin Laden take note: You wouldn't be safe in Costa Rica.
A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaeda leader, police said on Tuesday.
Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the Bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 35km north of San Jose.
Arias had startled several drivers that way on Monday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was hospitalised in stable condition.
"For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun," Sandoval told Channel 7 television.
Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defence.
- AP