A student from the Republic of Moldova will receive a EUR 1,800 prize from a foundation from his home country for having pinned down the man who tried to detonate a bomb in an university hall in Iasi, Romania earlier this week.

The Moldavian student Marian Platonov (in picture), with the help of a colleague, immobilized the bomber and tied his hands with a belt, keeping him pinned down until the cops arrived.

“The man was preparing the bomb, but he pressed a button by accident. We were lucky he did not manage to uncover the entire bomb. There was a thick layer of smoke and it smelled like sulphur, but after it exploded, we jumped on him, a colleague an I, pinned him down and tied his hands with a belt we had taken from a teacher,” said Marian Platonov, who was taking his final university exam together with his colleagues.

The foundation Edelweiss from the Republic of Moldova decided to award almost EUR 1,800 to the young man as a reward for his bravery.

Oliver Stan, the man who partially detonated the bomb he was carrying in his backpack on Monday morning in an University hall in Iasi, where 40 students were taking their final exam, was taken into custody and will be prosecuted for terrorism.

One of the teachers who were supervising the exam managed to exit the room and call the emergency service 112. “Nobody knew him. He said he had a bomb, and I managed to exit the hall, saying I had to throw a cup of coffee. I left the door partially opened and managed to call 112. While I was on the hallway, I heard the noise from the bomb, I understand he detonated only a part of what he had with him. He was carrying a large backpack, with a huge load. […] It was shocking,” said university assistant Daniel Mătăsaru. He added that had he not managed to call 112, they would have probably ended up in a hostage situation.

The bomber, a man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, had a missile from the Second World War, together with five liters of gas in one bag, and an extra 7.5 liters of gas in another bag. He tried to detonate the bomb, but the trigger did not work, so only a small explosion occurred on the trigger device. If he had detonated the missile, the entire university amphitheater would have been destroyed and people would have died, according to sources with the prosecution, quoted by local media. A team from the Anti-Terrorism Unit took the missile on a field near the city of Iasi and detonated it later on.

Oliver Stan, who is currently under arrest, was admitted to the Socola psychiatry hospital in Iasi nine times in the past, and was last released in April 2013, but failed to follow the treatment he had been prescribed upon hospital discharge. When asked why he tried to detonate the bomb, he said he wanted to have some media attention.

The 24-year old Marian Platonov, already nicknamed the 'Iasi savior' by the local media, is the beneficiary of a scholarship from the Romanian state, as well as from the Dinu Patriciu foundation. He is passionate about photography and film and created several electronic devices to measure distance, temperature and humidity, including a computer - managed small robot which measures distances and which can be used in unknown, hostile environments.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Marian Platonov's Facebook page)