Summary The suspect was taken to a police station where he was interrogated about the incident.
ANKARA, Nov 21, 2013 (AFP) - Turkish police arrested a "mentally unstable" man carrying a fake bomb outside the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, officials said, causing a security scare in the capital.
Local television stations had initially reported that the suspect was shot and wounded by police but officials and witnesses later said they wrestled him to the ground and only fired shots in the air.
"This individual was carrying a device resembling a bomb but in fact it was not one," Interior Minister Muammer Guler told reporters, describing him as "mentally unstable".
The suspect was taken to a police station where he was interrogated about the incident.
Erdogan was at the headquarters of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) at the time and not in his office.
Security was boosted in the area, and a police helicopter was seen hovering over the building.
Police identified the man as Tugrul Bayir, born in 1961, but gave no further information.
"Security guards fired five or six times into the air. They didn t shoot him," a witness told AFP.
The witness said the suspect was wearing a corset around his waist carrying some type of cement with cables attached as well as a black box.
Erdogan, who has been prime minister for 11 years but has become an increasingly polarising figure in Turkey, is due to leave later Thursday for a visit to Moscow.
NTV television reported that a man had called the police saying he was a suicide bomber and was planning to go to Erdogan s office.
In February this year, a Turkish security guard was killed and several people injured in a suicide bombing outside the highly-fortified US embassy in Ankara.
The attack was claimed by radical Marxist group the Revolutionary People s Liberation Front.
