Florida pastor’s attempt to hurt Muslims again foiled

Anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones was arrested on a felony charge in Florida early Thursday, police said, after announcing plans to burn nearly 3,000 copies of the Holy Qur’an on a barbecue grill.
Jones was towing the grill and the kerosene-soaked holy books in the back of his pickup truck to a park in Mulberry, Florida, according to follower Stephanie Sapp, whose husband, Marvin Wayne Sapp Jr., was also arrested.
Sapp said Jones’s group, Stand Up America Now, had earlier announced plans on Facebook to torch the copies on the 9/11 anniversary.
Jones and Sapp Jr. were each charged with unlawful conveyance of fuel, a felony, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement. Jones was also charged with a misdemeanor of openly carrying a firearm.
As pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, Jones in 2010 threatened to burn copies of the holy book, drawing widespread outrage in the US and abroad, before he called the plan off.
In 2011, however, his congregation did burn the Holy Qur’an 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.