LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) – A Norwegian teenager was convicted on Wednesday of conspiracy to commit murder in Britain after being recruited by a Swedish organised crime group that prosecutors said was being used by the Iranian government.
Johannes Natland, now 19, was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, northern England, in March last year with two firearms and ammunition in his possession.
Prosecutors said Natland had been recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish organised crime group used by the Iranian state and sanctioned by both Britain and the United States.
Natland had admitted possessing a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver and ammunition, but denied conspiracy to murder, saying he did not intend to carry out the plan.
After a retrial at London’s Old Bailey court, Natland was found guilty of conspiracy to murder. A jury at his initial trial in June could not reach a verdict on that charge.
Natland is the latest young adult to stand trial in Britain and elsewhere over serious criminal acts allegedly carried out after being recruited online for money, often as an unwitting proxy for a foreign state.
Prosecutor Alistair Richardson told jurors that Natland was recruited by the Foxtrot Network, after someone using the name “Agent 47” organised hiring an assassin with €25,000 ($28,500) “in the pot” to pay for it.
Natland “neither knew, nor cared who he was to kill … to him, this was all about the money”, Richardson said.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Michael Holden and Ros Russell)
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