A Norwegian teenager has been sentenced to 20 years after a jury convicted him of conspiracy to murder in a planned attack stopped by police before anybody was physically harmed. Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, was sentenced on Friday 16 October and must serve a minimum of 13 years in custody.
The sentence followed a retrial earlier this year. Natland had already pleaded guilty to possessing a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver and ammunition, but he denied the conspiracy charge. The jury convicted him of conspiracy to murder. He received a separate five-year sentence for the firearms and ammunition offences, to run concurrently with the 20-year term.
Arrest after arrival in Britain
Natland arrived at Manchester Airport on 17 March 2025. He was arrested at a Huddersfield hotel in the early hours of 19 March. Officers found a bag beneath his bed containing two firearms and 19 rounds of ammunition. The police intervention came before the planned attack was carried out. No one was physically injured, and the intended victim has never been identified.
Investigators traced Natland’s movements through airport and hotel footage. They said he travelled by taxi to a wooded area near Huddersfield, where the firearms had been concealed, and then returned to the hotel. Digital material recovered during the investigation included maps, pictures and videos giving directions to the location of the weapons. Investigators also found communications indicating that he had been given instructions about travelling to Britain and about what to do after arrival.
The case did not depend on an admission to the murder conspiracy. Natland’s account was that he did not intend to carry out the killing. The jury heard the evidence and rejected that account. Its guilty verdict established his criminal responsibility for conspiracy to murder. It did not identify the person who was to be targeted, and it did not resolve every question about other people who may have been involved in directing or assisting the plan.
What remains unproven
Counter Terrorism Policing said its investigation found that Natland was being tasked by someone connected to the Foxtrot Network. The organisation has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom and the United States. That assessment was part of the investigating authorities’ account of the case; it is not a finding that every wider allegation about the network was proved at Natland’s trial.
The investigating police also said they found no evidence of a direct link to Iran in this particular case. That statement sits alongside the conviction: it does not lessen the verdict against Natland, but it does mean that the criminal case should not be used to state an unproved direct Iranian connection as fact. The unidentified target remains a central limit on what is publicly known about the intended attack.
Further enquiries
The investigation into people suspected of helping Natland obtain the firearms and a stolen car is continuing. A 27-year-old man arrested in September 2025 on suspicion of conspiracy to murder was subsequently released under investigation. Two men, aged 30 and 27, were arrested in Bradford in May on suspicion of handling stolen goods connected with a car and were released on bail.
Those arrest and bail or release-under-investigation statuses are not convictions, and no further charges against those individuals have been confirmed in the public account. Natland’s position is different: he has been convicted and sentenced. The court’s 20-year term, with a 13-year minimum, is the confirmed outcome. No public information confirms a release date or any transfer arrangement for him.
