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He was arrested at a hotel in Huddersfield in northern England
with two guns and ammunition two days after arriving in the U.K.
Natland admitted to possessing the firearms and ammunition, but
said that he didn't want to go through with the plan.
Natland, who was working part time at a pizza restaurant at the
time of his arrest, was recruited by a Swedish organized crime
group known as the Foxtrot Network while he was playing a game
online. The group has links to the Iranian government, according
to counterterrorism officers from London’s Metropolitan Police.
“You agreed to be the enforcer and pursued it, despite numerous
opportunities to extricate yourself,” Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb
said at his sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court in
southeast London.
“Although the fact that no one was shot dead or physically
harmed is important, I am sure had the intervention of the
police not prevented the plan from proceeding, you would have
done what you had agreed to.”
Natland was hired by a 17-year-old known as “Generalen.” A court
in Norway convicted the teenager last year of attempting to
“contribute to murder” and sentenced him to 14 years in custody.
Three more people have been charged by Norwegian police, with a
decision yet to be made by prosecutors whether to indict them.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing
London, credited the “exceptional work” of British police
working with Norwegian counterparts for Natland’s arrest hours
before he was due to carry out an assassination.
“Natland was clearly being tasked by someone in the Foxtrot
Network, an organized criminal group sanctioned by the U.K. and
the U.S. due to its involvement in orchestrating violence
against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the
Iranian regime,” she said.
The U.K. government announced sanctions against Foxtrot Network
and its leader last year “due to their involvement in violence
against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the
Iranian regime.”
The sanctions include an asset freeze that bars U.K. businesses
from handling funds or other economic assets controlled by the
organization.
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