Mysql – Declaring and using variables in triggers

I have been testing something with triggers today, but I am stuck with it and I do not have any idea what is causing my problem.

DELIMITER $$

USE `pucko`$$

CREATE TRIGGER `after_delete_Alien`
AFTER DELETE ON `Alien` FOR EACH ROW BEGIN       
    DECLARE vapenid INT;
    DECLARE alien_count INT;
    DECLARE rymdskepp_count INT;

    SET vapenid = (SELECT vapen FROM `Alien_Använder_Vapen` WHERE idAlien = OLD.idAlien);

    SIGNAL SQLSTATE '45000' SET MESSAGE_TEXT = vapenid; // Debug, this shows that vapenid is null?

    DELETE FROM `Alien_Använder_Vapen` WHERE idAlien = OLD.idAlien;

    SET alien_count = (SELECT count(*) FROM `Alien_Använder_Vapen` WHERE vapen = vapenid);
    SET rymdskepp_count = (SELECT count(*) FROM `Rymdskepp_Använder_Vapen` WHERE vapen = vapenid);


    if(alien_count < 1 && rymdskepp_count < 1) THEN
        DELETE FROM `vapen` WHERE idVapen = vapenid;
    END IF;
END$$

The problem I am having is when vapenid is/should be set. I know that there is an alien with id "abc". I know that there is a vapen with id 1. In Alien_Använder_Vapen there is a row with alienId abc and vapen as 1. I use the SIGNAL to debug a bit what the value of vapenid is, and mySQL returns

delete from Alien where idAlien = "abc" Error Code: 1231. Variable 'MESSAGE_TEXT' can't be set to the value of 'NULL'

This makes me think that NULL is returned from the query in vapenid, but that doesn't make sense, as SELECT vapen FROMAlien_Använder_VapenWHERE idAlien = 'abc' in a normal query returns 1 correctly.

I've been trying to figure this out for quite some time now but I just can't see what I'm doing wrong. Is my syntax or logic wrong/weird?