By Sinikka Tarvainen –
MADRID — Spanish police said Thursday they had foiled a planned massacre at a university campus in Palma de Majorca, where a 21-year-old man intended to imitate the 1999 shooting spree at Columbine High School in the United States.
Police started investigating the Spaniard after noticing that he expressed admiration for the Columbine killings in an Internet blog.
The man was detained in Palma de Majorca on Wednesday, just as he was being handed components of explosives which he had ordered over the Internet.
He had planned to set off a total of more than 300 pounds of explosives in various places at the university campus, police sai.
In his home, police discovered a diary in which he expressed hatred of society and of university students in particular.
The police operation probably prevented “a massacre” and saved “many lives,” Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said.
