Skip to content

Police investigate bomb threat

Monday's bomb scare second for Lynnmour area mosque

North Vancouver RCMP are looking for a suspect after a bomb threat at a Lynnmour area mosque.

Police evacuated the Al-Ghadir Masjid mosque on the 300-block of Lynn Avenue just before 6 p.m. Monday after someone called the North Vancouver RC MP detachment to alert police to a bomb set to detonate that night.

"An unknown caller made a bomb threat of unknown reliability against a North Vancouver mosque," said Cpl. Richard De Jong, North Vancouver RC MP spokesman. "Of course, we did take it seriously and went to the mosque.. .. There was the beginnings of a religious event so approximately 15 people were cleared off the premises."

Police called in their bomb sniffing dog to search the two-floor building; however, no explosives turned up.

Investigators are interviewing mosque officials to come up with potential suspects and police are canvassing businesses in the commercial area where the caller made the threat from a pay phone, De Jong said on Tuesday.

De Jong could not say whether the suspect made a specific threat or why he targeted Al-Ghadir Masjid.

The mosque was the target of another bomb threat in June 2010. RC MP arrested a Burnaby man and charged him with three counts of uttering threats, but the accused did not show up for his first appearance in court and the judge issued a warrant for his arrest in January 2011.

Al-Ghadir Masjid's imam could not be reached for comment.