Police arrest student who 'planned to kill 22'

Feb 12, 2010, 20:10 GMT

   Budapest - A student who was planning to shoot 22 people at random has been arrested and has made a partial confession, Hungarian police said on Friday.

   The 22-year-old Hungarian man, identified as Abel S., claims he wanted to kill someone for each of the '22 bad years' of his life, the head of Budapest police's crime department Zsolt Bodnar told reporters.

   The suspect had an 'unhealthy attraction towards school shootings that have taken place in other countries', Bodnar was quoted as saying by the state news agency MTI.

   The man, who was arrested in a Budapest street on Thursday, had allegedly joined a shooting club in order to prepare for the planned massacre.

   The suspect had already carried his licensed 9mm pistol into university and a shopping mall on separate occasions and 'did not know' why he had not gone through with his plan, Bodnar said.

   In November last year a student opened fire during class in the southern Hungarian university town of Pecs, killing one and wounding three others.