Spain: Man arrested over plan to bomb university campus

Spanish police have arrested a man on suspicion of planning to imitate the 1999 Columbine school killings by planting bombs around a university campus.

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

A police spokesman said there was nothing to indicate the man planned the attack for any ideological reasons.

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

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