 A startled taxi driver shot and wounded a jokester wearing a plastic mask of the al-Qaeda leader, police said today. Leonel Arias, 47, told police he was playing a practical joke by donning the bin Laden mask, toting his pellet rifle and jumping out to scare drivers on a narrow street in his hometown, Carrizal de Alajuela, about 35 kilometres north of San Jose. Arias had startled several drivers that way yesterday afternoon. But when he jumped out in front of taxi driver Juan Pablo Sandoval, the motorist reached for a gun and shot him twice in the stomach. He was taken to hospital, where his condition was described as stable. "For me and I think for anybody else at a time like that one thinks the worst and so I fired my gun," Sandoval told Channel 7 television. Police declined to detain Sandoval, saying he had believed he was acting in self-defence. |