A jury in Austria has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a 21 year-old Austrian man, who has admitted plotting a jihadist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in August 2024.
The man, named only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy laws, has also admitted to a charge
of “being part of a terrorist organisation”.
Beran A has denied other charges, including involvement in planning an attack in the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
He is on trial with another 21-year-old man, named as Arda K from Slovakia, who is accused with him of being part of a cell with jihadist group Islamic State (IS). Arda K was not involved in the Taylor Swift plot.
Beran A was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA, just before the first of three sold-out Taylor Swift concerts that were supposed to take place in Vienna’s Ernst Happl stadium in the summer of 2024.
All three shows were cancelled, to the dismay of almost 200,000 fans, and the singer herself.
A documentary of Swift’s Eras Tour revealed Swift had learned about the bomb plot while she was on a plane to Austria. She described how the tour had narrowly “dodged a massacre situation”.
Prosecutors say Beran A had become radicalised and had sworn allegiance to IS. They said he tried but did not succeed in buying weapons illegally, including a machine gun and a hand grenade.
He is also accused of trying to make a bomb, using instructions in an Islamic State video posted online.
Court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann said that Beran A showed no signs of mental illness, adding that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalisation.
Summing up, the prosecution counsel said Beran A had pleaded guilty to many of the charges against him, including preparing the attack on the Taylor Swift concert.
But he said Beran A and Arda K had also been complicit in planning attacks in Mecca and other cities several months earlier.
Although they did not take part in an attack, a third man they went to school with called Hasan E is currently in custody in Saudi Arabia accused of stabbing a security guard and four other people in Mecca.
The two men admit travelling as part of the plot to Istanbul and Dubai respectively, but deny providing the Hasan E with support.
The prosecutor told the jury they had the opportunity to send a message that “anyone who prepared a terrorist attack should face consequences” and he called for a guilty verdict on all counts.
Beran A’s defence lawyer Anna Mair, said her client deserved to be punished but only for the crimes he had committed.
She said he was not a ringleader and had been manipulated.
“My client is not innocent; he has committed serious crimes. But you can only convict him for what he has done,” she said.
Beran A told the court he was sorry.
Arda K also said he was sorry and that things should never have gone that far. He asked the jury for a chance to be allowed to “integrate into society”.
If the two are found guilty of all the charges against them, they face up to 20 years in prison.
By BBC News
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