Security officials mistake meditating Portuguese actor for terrorist on Paris plane

A Portuguese actor humming a prayer as he meditated to a sacred Tibetan text on board a plane awaiting takeoff from Paris, was mistaken for a terrorist by alarmed passengers and taken off the flight by police.

Heitor Lourenco said on Monday in Lisbon that police said had been denounced as a terrorism suspect aboard the plane because he was reciting the Koran aloud.

Lourenco, 47, said his text, which he was reading on a tablet device, contained Tibetan characters.

The suspect said the device also had the timer on, to tell him how long he had meditated, which probably caused associations with a bomb.

He said he was released after six hours of questioning, during which police watched videos of him on the Internet showing that he was a theater and television actor.

Lourenco said they also checked his profile on Wikipedia, which states that he was a Buddhist.

Source - NAN