Stranger screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ ruins couple’s wedding after bursting into church and groping Virgin Mary statue
The Syrian man's bizarre rampage ended when he was tackled and restrained until police arrived
A COUPLE say their wedding day was ruined when a man burst inside the church shouting "Allahu Akbar" and fondled a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Groom Marcel Lohbeck, 35, and his bride Friederike, wanted to celebrate their wedding with 90 guests in the Carmel Church in Duisburg, western Germany.
Lochbeck said: "At the beginning of the ceremony, a 23-year-old man with a thick jumper and a hat on came into the church and sat in the back row.
Shortly afterwards, he stood up and wandered around the candles. He laughed in a disturbing manner and then fondled the statue of Mary.
"He had been speaking in Arabic and partly English. He then started destroying the flowers and kept shouting 'Allahu Akbar'."
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Police officer Ludger A., 57, the uncle of the groom, tried to intervene along with the church sexton saying: "We tried to calm the obviously traumatised Syrian man."
After the man again refused to leave the church, there was a fight in which the police officer got slight injuries to his face.
Yet he managed to restrain the Syrian man until his colleagues from the Duisburg police could arrive.
After a medical examination, the 23-year-old Syrian man was taken to a psychiatric hospital.
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