A Norwegian teenager has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after plotting to assassinate a target in the UK for an Iran-backed criminal gang.
Johannes Natland was 18 when he travelled from Stavanger in south-west Norway to Britain to carry out the killing, receiving a promised payment of £21,000, the trial heard.
He was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, on March 19 last year, just hours before the planned attack was due to take place.
Officers seized a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver and 12 rounds of ammunition, along with £2,000 in cash.
Natland was found guilty of conspiracy to murder after a two-week trial at the Old Bailey.
During sentencing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Natland had been “thrilled” to take part in the plot.
Johannes Natland, 19, travelled from the oil-rich town of Stavanger, south-west Norway, to assassinate a target in the UK “in return for money”, the Old Bailey was told
Addressing the teenager at Woolwich Crown Court, she said: “At the heart of this case is a stark fact. You agreed to assassinate another human being, a stranger to you, in a foreign country.”
She added: “Although the fact that no one was shot dead or physically harmed is important I am sure that had the intervention of the police not prevented the plan from proceeding, you would have done what you had agreed to.”
The court heard that the murder plot had been organised by the Foxtrot Network, a ruthless Swedish gang allegedly used by Iran’s regime.
Britain sanctioned Foxtrot in April last year over its involvement in violence targeting Jewish and Israeli interests across Europe.
Natland was drawn into the Huddersfield operation after receiving a Signal message about a “murder in England” from a user named “Unknown Hustler”, the Old Bailey heard.
Now 19, Natland was subsequently placed in a group chat with a Norwegian recruiter and Ali Shehab, a 22-year-old Swedish-Iraqi gangster and senior Foxtrot recruiter known as “Agent 47”, a nickname borrowed from the video game Hitman.
The jury was not told that Shehab is a close associate of Foxtrot leader Rawa Majid, who allegedly reached an agreement with Iran to target the regime’s enemies overseas.
Acting on Shehab’s instructions, Natland flew from Stavanger to Manchester on March 17, the court heard.
Suspicious Border Force officers questioned him and eventually refused him entry to the UK, instructing him to return to the airport for a flight home four days later.
That arrangement left Natland free to enter the country, and he travelled by taxi to a hotel in Manchester.
The next day, recruiters directed him to a woodland area in Huddersfield, where he collected the weapons and ammunition.
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After checking into a nearby hotel, he messaged his girlfriend: “In the bag is bang.” At 10.39pm, a friend asked him, “U dun it?” Natland replied: “No. tomorrow.”
Firearms officers arrested him at 5.15am on March 19 at the Briar Court Hotel in Huddersfield. Natland opened the door with his hands raised, mimicked holding a gun and pretended to shoot at one of the officers.
Natland admitted possession of the firearms but denied conspiracy to murder.
Giving evidence, he said he was ‘terrified’ and planned to sabotage the plot at the last minute by shooting himself in the foot.
But the prosecution suggested Natland’s plan was a ‘lie’, arguing that he had boasted to his friends about the mission.
The court heard the teenager also told his then-girlfriend that ‘it will be a bit cool to really kill someone’.
Natland, 19, was found guilty of conspiracy to murder following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey. He had already admitted possession of firearms
Natland was found with £2,000 in cash in his hotel room in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
Johannes Natland (right) waved goodbye to his mother, Ellen Kongsnes (left), as he left his large family home in Stavanger, south-west Norway, on March 17 last year. Pictured: The pair on a family trip to the Bernabeu, the stadium of Real Madrid, Johannes’s favourite football team
The intended target remains unknown but Natland ‘neither knew, nor cared’ who he was to murder, the prosecution said.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the teenager ‘had been a good student from a financially secure and supportive professional home, with every prospect of a successful life’.
Addressing Natland, she said: ‘To the horror of your parents and those who knew you well, the trajectory of your adolescence was seriously disrupted by cannabis and then class A drugs.’
Jurors heard how the defendant – while not quite ‘a hitman from a Hollywood movie’ – was precisely the type of vulnerable teenager preyed upon by the Foxtrot Network.
Natland’s mother, journalist Ellen Kongsnes, has previously told the Mail that she didn’t believe her son would have gone through with the killing. ‘He could never harm anyone, he wouldn’t have been able to do it,’ she said.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: ‘Natland was clearly being tasked by someone in the Foxtrot Network, an organised criminal group sanctioned by the UK and the US due to its involvement in orchestrating violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime.
‘The intended target of this specific assassination has never been identified, and we found no evidence of any direct link to Iran in this case.
‘One of the tactics increasingly used by foreign states seeking to cause harm to the UK is the use of criminal proxies. They often recruit people online with promises of significant financial reward.
‘But the reality is that those carrying out these tasks are viewed as disposable assets by those directing them. They are used when convenient and abandoned when circumstances change.’
