A 21-year-old Austrian man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for planning a jihadist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna during the US singer’s Eras tour in August 2024.
The man, named only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy laws, was also found guilty of a string of other terrorism-related offences.
He was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA just before the first of three sold-out Taylor Swift concerts was due to take place in Vienna’s Ernst Happl stadium.
All three Austrian shows were immediately cancelled, to the dismay of almost 200,000 fans and the singer herself.
Swift previously described how her record-breaking Eras Tour had narrowly “dodged a massacre situation”. A tour documentary revealed the US singer had learned about the bomb plot while travelling to Austria.
Prosecutors said Beran A had become radicalised and had sworn allegiance to jihadist group Islamic State (IS). They said he tried but had not succeeded in buying weapons illegally, including a machine gun and a hand grenade.
Court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann said Beran A showed no signs of mental illness, adding that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalisation.
He was on trial in Wiener Neustadt, a city south of Vienna, with another 21-year-old man named as Arda K from Slovakia, accused of being part of a cell with jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
Arda K – who was not involved in the plot against the concert – was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Beran A told the court earlier on Thursday that he was sorry, before the jury retired for several hours to consider its verdicts.
Shortly after the foiled attack, Taylor Swift said it had filled her with “a new sense of fear” – and that the cancellations left her with a “tremendous amount of guilt”.
But the US mega-star added on Instagram: “I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
By BBC News
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