Spanish police: Man set to imitate Columbine

MADRID -- Spanish police said yesterday they had arrested a man on suspicion of planning to imitate the 1999 Columbine school killings by planting bombs around a university campus.

Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz hailed the arrest, saying that "it appears a massacre has been averted."

Police said they seized 308 pounds of bomb-making material when they arrested the 21-year-old man 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 school attack in Columbine, Colo., and how he planned to place several bombs around a campus in Palma.

The police statement said the man had openly expressed his hatred for society, and particularly students. A police spokesman said there was nothing to indicate that the man had planned to carry out the attack for any set ideological reasons.

Twelve students and a teacher were killed in the Colorado attack. The two perpetrators then killed themselves. The Spanish suspect's diary indicated he had considered committing suicide once he had carried out the attack.

Police said the man had tried several times to purchase guns for the university attack, then opted to use bombs by buying explosive-making material on the Internet. The statement said he had planned to make shrapnel pipe bombs.

The arrest took place just as the material was delivered to his house, the statement said.

Police said they had been watching the man for the past months after messages referring to Columbine began appearing on Internet pages.