Hawzah News Agency (Arizona, US) – Police arrested a man on charges of threatening and intimidating at a Phoenix mosque on Saturday, the day after a suspected gunman opened fire at two Muslim places of worship in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least 50 people.

Noel Thomas Becht, 40, was taken into custody and booked into Maricopa County Jail on charges of threatening and intimidating, disorderly conduct and trespassing after police responded to a report of someone acting suspiciously Saturday night at the United Islamic Center of Arizona.

Officers, upon arriving at the scene, were told a man later identified as Becht had entered the building and said he was curious about the Muslim religion, the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement.

Police said that Becht was told he could sit in on a prayer service and that he began to wander around before the service ended, entering areas he was not permitted to be in without an invitation.

He asked unusual questions about service times at the center and another mosque in Tempe, about 30 miles southeast of the state capital, police said. When questioned by one of the mosque’s leaders, Becht allegedly put his finger to his neck and made a sawing motion.

“The thing that was a very potential threat was when he made this sign,” Didmar Faja, the mosque’s imam, told. “The vice imam said, ‘What does that mean? Why are you doing that?’ [Becht] said that ‘you will know later.’”

Becht remained in custody as of Monday morning.

Phoenix police on Sunday patrolled an interfaith vigil at the nearby Islamic Center of the North East Valley attended by hundreds of people to mourn the 50 people killed in last Thursday’s shootings in Christchurch. The suspected gunman was reportedly a white supremacist.

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