ISIS terrorist, 21, jailed for 15 years over Taylor Swift Vienna concert plot | World | News

A 21-year-old Austrian man who plotted an attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in August 2024 has been jailed for 15 years. The man, named only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy laws, was also found guilty of a series of other terrorism-related offences.

A court heard that he planned to target concert-goers outside the Ernst Happel Stadium using knives or home-made explosives, as tens of thousands of “Swifties” travelled to Vienna. He was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA just before the first of three sold-out concerts. The Grammy-Award winning pop singer’s shows were all cancelled. A state court in Wiener Neustadt, a city south of Vienna, found him guilty on charges of terror offences and belonging to a terror organisation. Prosecutors said he had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and had networked with members of the militant group.

The day before the first Eras Tour concert was set to go ahead, police searched Beran A’s apartment, where they found bomb-making materials. Prosecutors also said he tried, but failed, to buy weapons illegally, including a machine gun and a hand grenade.

The US singer previously described how her record-breaking tour had narrowly “dodged a massacre situation” and a tour documentary revealed she had learned about the bomb plot while travelling to Austria. Swift said it had filled her with “a new sense of fear”, and that the cancellations, which would have seen around 200,000 attendees over the three events, left her with a “tremendous amount of guilt”.

However, she added on Instagram: “I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”

Court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann said Beran A showed no signs of mental illness, adding that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalisation.

Before the court adjourned to consider a verdict on Thursday (May 28), the defendant said: “I would just like to say that I am sorry.”

Beran A was on trial with another 21-year-old man, named as Arda K, from Slovakia, accused of being part of a cell with the Islamic State.

The pair, along with a third man who was arrested and remains in pre-trial detention in Saudi Arabia, allegedly planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE in the name of ISIS. Arda K – who was not involved in the plot against the concert – was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Beran A’s defence lawyer, Anna Mair, told the court that her client was “not an ideological mastermind”.