Budapest Police catch student who planned mass shooting

Budapest police on Thursday arrested a 22-year-old law student who was planning to murder 21 randomly selected people before intending to turn his pistol on himself, it was announced on Friday.

Police received a tip-off on Thursday, reportedly from a fellow student, that the man, identified only as Ábel S., was preparing to carry out the murders.

He told police detectives on Thursday evening that "the world will pay with 22 lives for the 22 bad years of my life" by random killings at a shopping centre or a university. Another report said the he wanted to murder 21 students and a teacher at Eötvös Loránd University, whose law faculty he attends.

He partly retracted his confession on Saturday, and denied that he had prepared to murder 22 people. He admitted only that he had fired his gas pistol through a window of his residence.

The would-be killer owns a licensed 9mm Parabellum pistol and is the member of a shooting club. A house search revealed that he is an admirer for university massacres elsewhere in the world.

Police immediately ordered psychiatric observation and traced his family, friends and school connections.

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