A court in Austria sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison the accused of planning a jihadist attack against a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, during the American singer’s Eras tour in August 2024.
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The Austrian known as Beran A. -according to the privacy rules of the European country-, was also found guilty of a series of other terrorism-related crimes by the state court of Wiener Neustadt.
The now convicted 21-year-old was arrested following a CIA tip-off just before the first of the three sold-out Swift concerts at the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna took place.
As a result, the artist’s concerts in Austria were immediately canceled, to the dismay of nearly 200,000 fans and the singer herself.
According to the BBC, Swift had described how during her successful Eras Tour a massacre had been narrowly avoided. A tour documentary revealed that the star learned of the terrorist plot while traveling to Vienna.
According to the local prosecution, Beran A. had radicalized and pledged allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), and also attempted to illegally purchase weapons, including a machine gun and a hand grenade.
For his part, forensic psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann stated that the accused showed no signs of mental illness and added that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalization.
His defense lawyer, meanwhile, said his client admitted the charges related to the plot to disrupt the concert during the first day of the trial last month.
Beran A. was tried in Wiener Neustadt, a city south of Vienna, along with another 21-year-old man named Arda K., from Slovakia, accused of being part of a cell of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
The latter, who did not participate in the conspiracy against the American singer’s show, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
In a brief final statement addressed to the court before it adjourned to deliberate for several hours on the verdict, Beran A. said: “I just want to say I’m sorry”.
Supposedly, the Austrian planned to attack people near the Ernst Happel stadium with knives or homemade explosives.
Soon after the foiled attack, Swift said on social media that it had filled her with “a new sense of fear and that the cancellations had caused her an “enormous feeling of guilt”.
She then added on Instagram that “I am also very grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were mourning the cancellation of concerts and not the loss of lives.”
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