An Austrian man who planned a jihadist attack on one of Taylor Swift’s sold-out Vienna concerts in 2024 has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A jury at the state court in Wiener Neustadt on Thursday found the 21-year-old Austrian citizen, identified only as Beran A. under local privacy laws, guilty of multiple terrorism-related offences.
Prosecutors said Beran A. had become radicalised, sworn allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, and planned an attack on the singer’s Eras Tour concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium.
He was arrested on 7 August 2024 after Austrian authorities received a tip-off from the CIA. The concerts, which were expected to attract almost 200,000 fans over three nights, were cancelled immediately for security reasons.
Beran A. had already pleaded guilty to the main charges connected to the planned attack, which carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The court heard that Beran A. had attempted to illegally obtain weapons including a machine gun and a hand grenade, but was unsuccessful. Prosecutors also said he followed instructions from an Islamic State video titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” to produce a small quantity of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP).
During the same trial, Beran A. was also accused of involvement in separate attack plots earlier in 2024 together with other associates linked to Islamic State.
According to court proceedings, Beran A. and co-defendant Arda K. travelled separately to Dubai and Istanbul with the intention of carrying out attacks, but ultimately abandoned those plans. Prosecutors said Beran A. later escalated his ambitions and selected the Taylor Swift concert as his intended target.
Court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann told the trial that Beran A. showed no signs of mental illness and that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalisation.
The jury found Beran A. guilty on 13 of the 15 charges brought against him, including providing moral support to another participant involved in terrorist activities, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Arda K., a 21-year-old Slovak national who was tried alongside him on separate terrorism-related charges and was not involved in the Taylor Swift concert plot, was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The cancellation of Swift’s Vienna concerts left almost 200,000 fans disappointed and drew international attention to the case. The singer later said the foiled attack had given her “a new sense of fear” but thanked authorities for preventing what she described as a potential “massacre situation.”
