Hungarian, 22, planned to kill 22 at random: police

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A 22-year-old Hungarian student who told police he planned to kill 22 people at random because he'd had "22 bad years" has been detained, news agency MTI said on Friday.

The man, identified by police as "Abel S.," was a sports shooter, owned a Luger Parabellum pistol and had been planning the attack for more than 1-1/2 years, MTI reported, citing Budapest police criminal director Zsolt Bodnar.

He said he wanted to kill 22 people at his university and at a shopping mall "because he had 22 bad years," the national news agency quoted Bodnar as saying.

Police were not immediately available for comment.

The man had confessed to the plan and said he felt a "sickly attraction" to the school massacres which have happened in other countries around the world, police said.

The suspect told police he had taken his pistol to the university and a shopping mall, Bodnar added.

Police detained the man and searched his home where they seized his pistol and personal computer which had a photo of a 1999 school massacre set as homepage, MTI said.

In November 2009 a student opened fire at a university in the southern Hungarian city of Pecs, killing a classmate and wounding three other people.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Michael Roddy)