A Norwegian teenager has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder after travelling to England to carry out a killing on behalf of an international crime network with links to the Iranian government. Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, from Stavanger in southwestern Norway, agreed to shoot an unidentified person for €25,000 (approximately £21,500) and was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, a city in West Yorkshire in northern England, less than two days after arriving in the country. Armed police seized two firearms and ammunition from beneath his bed. A jury at the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, delivered its guilty verdict after more than 17 hours of deliberation, following a retrial. Natland showed little visible reaction to the verdict and will be sentenced in October.

Natland, who worked part-time at a pizza restaurant and had begun taking drugs at the age of 13, was recruited by an organisation known as the Foxtrot Network — a Swedish organised crime group that British authorities say carries out operations on behalf of the Iranian regime. He is believed to have been approached online and first encountered a teenage Foxtrot member during a brief stay in a care home. He was subsequently passed to a recruiter and ultimately controlled by an English-speaking handler operating under the alias