Footballer Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, claimed he was going to shoot himself in the foot
A teen hitman from Norway has been found guilty of coming to England to carry out a killing on behalf of an international gang backed by Iran.
Footballer Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, agreed to shoot an unknown target for 25,000 euro (£21,500) in March last year.
Two days after arriving in the UK on a flight from his home in Stavanger, armed police swooped to arrest him at a hotel in Huddersfield and seize two guns and 12 live bullets.
Natland admitted possession the firearms and ammunition but claimed he would have shot himself in the foot to get out of the “pickle” he was in.
However, jurors heard he had lied repeatedly following his arrest and even tried to persuade his girlfriend not to give evidence in phone calls from prison.
An Old Bailey jury deliberated for 17 hours and six minutes to find him guilty of conspiracy to murder following a retrial.
Natland’s recruiter, a 17-year-old youth known as “Generalen”, was convicted in Norway of attempting to “contribute to murder” in May last year.
Three more people have been charged by Norwegian police with a decision yet to be taken by prosecutors whether to “indict” them.
Generalen was working for the proscribed Swedish Foxtrot gang which is backed by the Iranian regime and known for deploying children as young as 13 in drug smuggling and violent crimes.
He brought Natland in on the plot after another recruit backed out.
He was controlled by an English-speaking boss called “Agent 47”, in apparent reference to the Hitman gaming and movie franchise.
Natland was on his way to the UK when he heard via a group chat that Generalen had been arrested for conspiracy to murder but carried on anyway.
Under Agent 47’s close direction, Natland took a flight from his home in Stavanger in Norway to Manchester Airport on a temporary passport on March 17 last year.
He was stopped by Border Force officials in Manchester who bailed him to return to the airport to catch the next direct flight home.
Instead, he took a taxi to Huddersfield where he picked up £2,000 in cash, two guns and bullets and directed to a stolen Nissan with false plates to be used in the killing.
Natland then settled into his room at the Briar Court Hotel telling his girlfriend he had got the “bangs in the bag” and taking selfies with the guns and cash spread on his bed.
On the eve of the planned shooting, Agent 47 warned the defendant: “We have much to do tomorrow.”
At 5.15am the next day armed police banged on Natland’s hotel room to arrest him.
A smiling Natland emerged wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and pretended to shoot one of the officers with his empty hands.
In a search of his room, police seized a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver, 12 rounds of live ammunition, gloves, and £2,000 in cash.
At his trial, one of Natland’s footballer friends recalled a conversation with him about “Swedish Foxes” in which the defendant had bragged: “I’m going to get a lot of money and somebody is going to die.”
Natland had also confided in his girlfriend, saying in a message: “I’m going on crazy mission.”
According to her, he said: “Now I can finally kill someone and it’s perfect as I get money to do it. I can kill someone and life will be wonderful.”
Asked if he had thought it through, he told her: “It will be a bit cool to kill someone. If I don’t get caught we have to celebrate.”
Giving evidence, Natland said he wanted to look “cool” to his peers but it was just “bravado” and inside he was “terrified”.
Natland told jurors: “I wasn’t an international assassin. I thought people had this impression and expected me to be this guy. I knew I wasn’t.”
Despite having supportive parents, his life went downhill after getting hooked on drugs and he was placed in rehab and a care home, he said.
He initially agreed to the plan to shoot someone in England for money to pay for drugs, thinking it was a “joke” or a “scam”, he said.
After realising he was in a “pickle” with the Swedish Foxtrot gang, part-time pizza restaurant worker Natland said he planned to shoot himself in the foot to get out of it, he said.
He told jurors: “I was going to look like an idiot but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Faced with the alternative of being shot in the head, I thought being shot in the foot is better, yeah.”
Under cross-examination, he agreed that he had lied repeatedly in his written account of what happened and never once mentioned being scared before giving evidence at his trial.
Prosecutor Alistair Richardson told jurors: “The reality is the defendant is a troubled but dangerous young man. A young man who agreed to kill in a foreign country for money.”
The true identity and whereabouts of Natland’s English-speaking controller, Agent 47, remains unknown.