A man tried to start a fire at the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul.

The Turkish police have detained a man suspected of trying to set fire to the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul. This was announced on August 5 by Ekol TV.

The incident occurred during the Isha prayer. The suspect, dressed in a red hat and shorts, tried to light a fire in the mosque using papers hidden in his pocket. The fire was prevented thanks to a woman who saw the fire and notified the imam, the TV channel reports.

"A man named Mesut Gücü, whose identity was established using surveillance cameras, was caught by police just a few hours after the incident," Ekol TV said in a statement.

In July, a man was arrested on charges of "damaging religious buildings and cemeteries," the TV channel reports, citing the Fatih district police department. Gücü was also treated at Bakırkeyi Hospital for Mental and Neurological Diseases.

It is specified that after the incident, security measures were tightened at the mosque.

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Earlier, on June 8, an unidentified man suffering from mental disorders staged an attack on a mosque in the village of Karn al-Asad in the Yemeni province of Al-Bayda. The gunman began the attack by shooting at two young men in a nearby grocery store, and then went to the mosque and opened fire on parishioners shortly after the prayer ended. The victims of the attack were 12 people.

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