Norwegian teen faces court after conspiracy to murder for Iran-linked gang

Johannes Kongsnes Natland, a 19-year-old from Stavanger, travelled to the UK in March last year and was detained two days later in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, after police discovered two guns and twelve live rounds in his hotel room. He confessed to possessing the weapons but claimed he would have harmed himself to escape the situation. The Old Bailey jury, after a retrial, found him guilty of conspiracy to murder a plot commissioned by an Iran-backed international crime group.

Natland was recruited by a teenager known as “Generalen,” linked to the proscribed Swedish Foxtrot gang, and directed by an English-speaking handler dubbed “Agent 47.” He will be sentenced today at Woolwich Crown Court, while the identity and whereabouts of Agent 47 remain unknown.