Natland, a talented footballer from Stavanger, Norway, agreed to shoot an unknown target in return for €25,000 (£21,500). He flew into Manchester in March last year on a temporary passport and was stopped by Border Force officials, who bailed him to return to the airport to catch the next direct flight home. Instead, he travelled by taxi to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where he booked into the Briar Court hotel and collected a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver, 12 rounds of live ammunition, gloves, and £2,000 in cash. He was also directed to a stolen Nissan with false number plates, intended for use in the murder.
In the hotel, Natland took selfies with the guns and cash and bragged to his girlfriend that he had the “bangs in the bag”. Armed police arrested him at 5.15am the next day, before he could carry out the hit.
At trial, Natland claimed he had intended to shoot himself in the foot to get out of the “pickle” he was in. His defence counsel, Paul Hynes KC, pointed to his age at the time of the offence and said Natland had been a “young, popular, successful student and sportsman” before going “off the rails” after becoming addicted to drugs. 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.”
However, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, sentencing, said messages he had sent showed “not only participation but at points excitement” about what he had been planning. “You agreed to be the enforcer and pursued it, despite numerous opportunities to extricate yourself,” she said. “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.”
The court heard Natland was recruited by another teenager, referred to as Generalen, who worked for the proscribed Swedish Foxtrot gang, which is backed by the Iranian regime and known for recruiting children as young as 13 for drug smuggling and violent crimes. Natland was controlled by an English-speaking boss called Agent 47, an apparent reference to the Hitman gaming franchise. The identity and whereabouts of Agent 47 remain unknown.