Man Found Guilty of Taylor Swift Concert Plot

An Austrian court on Thursday convicted a man of planning to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago. The state court in Wiener Neustadt found the 21-year-old defendant, an Austrian citizen known only as Beran A. in line with Austrian privacy rules, guilty on charges including those related to the concert, the Austria Press Agency reported. His defense attorney said he admitted to the charges related to the concert plot during the opening day of the trial last month. The concert plot was thwarted, but Austrian authorities still canceled Swift's three performances in August 2024.

In short final words to the court before it adjourned to consider a verdict on Thursday, Beran A. said: "I would just like to say that I am sorry," the AP reports. Prosecutors said he planned to target people outside the Ernst Happel Stadium with knives or homemade explosives. Tens of thousands of Taylor Swift fans, known as Swifties, had traveled to Austria to attend the performances of her record-setting Eras Tour. Devastated by the cancellations, many gathered in central Vienna to trade friendship bracelets and commiserate about the cancellations.

Prosecutors said Beran A., who will face up to 20 years in prison, became radicalized online and swore allegiance to ISIS, the BBC reports. They said he attempted to illegally buy weapons including a machine gun, and tried to make a bomb, following instructions from an ISIS video.

• He was on trial with another man, 21-year-old Slovakian citizen Arda K., who was accused of being part of the same ISIS cell. They, along with a third man, Hasan E., who was arrested and remains in pretrial detention in Saudi Arabia, allegedly planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan 2024 in the name of ISIS.
• Only Beran A. was charged in connection with the concert plot. He pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the plot for simultaneous attacks. But APA reported that the court found him and Arda K. guilty of contributing to attempted murder, a charge linked to Hasan E.'s alleged stabbing of a security officer in Mecca in March 2024. Hasan E. also attacked and wounded three other officers and a woman before he was arrested, according to prosecutors.