A deeply religious gentleman marched through a museum in Israel and smashed 2,000-year-old statues with a stick because he disapproved of them.
After his arrest, the 40-year-old American told Israeli police that he considered the statues to be "idolatrous and contrary to the Torah."
The smashed statues were a marble head of the goddess Athena and another statue of a pagan deity. Both were from the 2nd century and have now been removed for restoration.
The arrested man's lawyer said his client is suffering from "Jerusalem Syndrome," a mental condition that causes religious delusions in some visitors to Jerusalem.
AP reports that the condition is a "form of disorientation believed to be induced by the religious magnetism of the city, which is sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslim," and "is said to cause foreign pilgrims to believe they are figures from the Bible."
"This is a shocking case of the destruction of cultural values," Eli Escusido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, told AP. "We see with concern the fact that cultural values are being destroyed by religiously motivated extremists."
