London: A British man who plotted to kill Prince Charles has been detained indefinitely under the mental health act, the media reported.
Mark Colborne, 29, dubbed “ginger extremist” by local media, fantasised about shooting the Prince of Wales so that “red-haired” Prince Harry could be king, Xinhua reported.
The man likened himself to Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik and made notes in his diary of his plan to assassinate Prince Charles with a high powered sniper rifle, reports said.
He also bought the ingredients for deadly poison cyanide over the internet and stock piled dust masks, metal filter funnels, plastic syringes and latex gloves.
“I don’t want to be a serial killer. I’m more of an Anders Breivik. I have left potential targets open… I was waiting for an opportunity to kill one of them. Let it be Prince Charles, which would be good,” he wrote in his notebook.
Following a retrial at the Old Bailey, England and Wales’s criminal court, Colborne was found guilty by a majority of preparing terrorist acts before he was arrested on June 3, 2014, after his family disclosed the chemicals and handwritten papers stored in his room.
The jury convicted him on the basis that he possessed notes copied from internet sources such as The Terrorist Handbook and book about production of viable explosives.
However, the jury rejected aspects of the allegations that he intended to use the chemicals and paraphernalia as part of the terror plot.
Judge commented the case as a “very strange” case involving a “very strange person,” who felt alienated and marginalised for being a white, ginger-haired man and was also suffering from agoraphobia and depression.
The court heard that Colborne was “sane” but had a personality disorder with a degree of psychosis which warranted continued treatment in Hampshire.