Columbine copycat bomb plotter held

Spanish police have arrested a man who allegedly planned to imitate the 1999 Columbine school killings by planting bombs around a university campus to kill thousands of students.

In a statement, police said they seized 140kg of bomb-making material when they arrested the 21-year-old in the Balearic island city of Palma de Mallorca

Police said that in his personal diary and internet blog, the man — only identified by his initials JMMS — talked of his admiration for the perpetrators of the Columbine attacks and how he planned to place several bombs around a campus in Palma.

Twelve students and one teacher were killed in the Colorado school attack. The two perpetrators then killed themselves.

Spanish police said the arrested man had tried several times to purchase guns for the university attack, where there are 17,000 students, but then opted to use bombs by buying explosive-making material on the internet.

The arrest took place on Wednesday when the material was delivered to his house, the statement said.

Police said they had been watching the man for the past five months after messages referring to Columbine began appearing on internet pages in Spain.

The statement said the man had openly expressed his hatred for students in his diary and blog.

“In his personal diary and in documents seized at his home, he showed a hatred for society, especially for university students, and his decision to strategically place pipe bombs filled with shrapnel on the university campus,” the police statement said.

“He also admitted the hypothesis of suicide while carrying out the massacre,” the statement added.

A police spokesman said the suspect had previously studied electronics at a technical training school and had recently begun a course in business administration. He said he earned money by playing poker on the internet and had recently moved out of his family house and into an apartment.

Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz hailed the arrest, saying: “It appears a massacre has been averted.”

The suspect “is not part of any political party or association,” according to Teresa Palmer, a central government representative in the Balearic Islands.

She called it “a completely isolated event” and encouraged citizens to remain calm.