Brit "belittled" for red hair convicted of poison plot
LONDON -- A British court has convicted a 37-year-old English man of plotting to kill as many non-redheads as possible with the deadly poison cyanide after hearing that he felt "belittled" by society as a Caucasian with red hair.
Mark Colborne, dubbed the "ginger extremist" by British media, was initially arrested last summer after his half brother and mother, in whose house he lived in the city of Southampton, discovered a stockpile of chemicals and equipment that could be used to make cyanide under the bed in his "extremely cluttered" room.
British media said that among the items discovered were chemicals, charcoal, metal pipes and tubes and latex gloves, along with a trove of manuals providing instructions on how to make poisons and use them to kill people.
He was convicted at a retrial Tuesday of terrorism related offenses for plotting a mass cyanide attack. Police said he had the materials to make enough of the poison to potentially kill 2,500 people.
Along with the manuals found in his room, police said they found his own writings in a diary that detailed his animosity toward what he deemed non-Aryan races.
He also spoke in his diary of a desire to kill Britain's Prince Charles and his son Prince William, to enable the red-haired Prince Harry to inherit the throne.
"He is protected but not too protected. I would sacrifice my life for that one shot. Kill Charles and William and Harry become king. Kill the tyrants," he reportedly said in his diary.
In his diary he also reportedly stated that he didn't consider himself a serial killer, but a person more akin to, in his mind, Norwegian domestic terrorist Anders Breivik, who killed dozens in an attack on a youth camp, or Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.