Indonesian Man Threatens to Blow Up McDonald’s for ‘Italians and Coronavirus’

Police arrested a man in Indonesian on Tuesday for threatening to blow up a McDonald’s restaurant because “he thought Italians were responsible for the abominations that are the American fast-food franchise” and the Chinese coronavirus, Indonesian news outlets Coconuts Jakarta reported on Thursday.

On Monday, a 35-year-old man entered a McDonald’s restaurant in Makassar, Indonesia, and threatened to blow up the establishment.

“He terrorized [the restaurant] and said that the [Chinese] coronavirus was created by Italians and the restaurant is Italian so he wanted to blow it up,” South Sulawesi police spokesman Ibrahim Tompo said on Tuesday.

Authorities identified the man by his initials, M.H. According to police, the man did not take further action after issuing his threat. Instead, he left the restaurant immediately afterward and “drove away on his motorbike.”

Authorities located the man the next day and “arrested [him] at a mosque on Tuesday after police identified him using the [McDonald’s] CCTV footage.”

“There was no evidence that M.H. was in possession of explosives” authorities in the Muslim majority country said.

The man reportedly “confessed [to police] that his prejudice was not limited to Italians.”

Police later learned that the man had “previously been declared medically insane” and have not pressed charges against him so far. He remained in police custody as of Wednesday, but “may be transferred to a mental institution soon,” Coconuts Jakarta reported on Thursday.

“It’s not clear where he got the idea that Italians were responsible for the coronavirus and McDonald’s,” the news outlet writes.

Italy and China maintain close economic and political ties through their joint Belt and Road Initiative. The Mediterranean country’s major ports have enjoyed a major boost in development opportunities under this infrastructure-building partnership, which has significantly expanded Italy’s shipping trade.

The Chinese coronavirus landed in Italy before any other European country, which most health experts attribute to the two countries’ closely linked trade and tourism. The virus devastated Italy; the country continues to report one of the highest death tolls in the world from the Chinese coronavirus, 35,017 at press time on Thursday.