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A 21-year-old Austrian confessed on Tuesday to have planned an ISIS-inspired attack on Taylor Swift’s three sold-out Eras Tour shows in Vienna in August 2024.
On the first day of the trial before the regional court in Wiener Neustadt, the defendant – who will only be referred to in court as Beran A. in accordance with Austrian data protection regulations – also pleaded guilty to having belonged to a terrorist cell. However, he acquitted himself of separate charges related to planned attacks in the Middle East, the BBC reported.
The Austrian police arrested Beran A. on August 7, 2024 – one day before Swift was scheduled to give her first performance at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium. “My client caused great fear and panic in many people, and he will have to answer for that, no question about it,” said defense attorney Anna Mair in court, according to media reports. “But please try to look beyond the headlines.”
Almost finished bomb found
Although the authorities announced in 2024 that they had thwarted the attack, Swift’s concerts were still canceled. When searching Beran A’s apartment before the first show, Austrian investigators seized a nearly completed bomb, according to the public prosecutor’s office. According to the indictment, the defendant had been preparing for the attack for at least a month by watching IS instruction videos.
Authorities said in 2024 that Beran A. aimed to “kill as many people as possible in front of the concert site.”
A second man is also charged: 21-year-old Arda K., who is accused of being part of the terrorist cell and of supporting the attack. A third alleged member of the cell, Hasan E., is in custody in Saudi Arabia, where he is said to have attacked a security guard at the Grand Mosque in Mecca with a knife. A fourth person, the Syrian teenager Mohammed A., was convicted in Germany last year for, among other things, helping to translate bomb-making instructions. He received a suspended sentence of 18 months in juvenile court.
Swift: “We escaped a massacre”
After the cancellations, Swift initially remained publicly silent about the incident – until the European leg of her tour was over. She later explained that she did not want to provoke anyone who might harm her fans. In an Instagram message, she described the cancellations as devastating, but expressly thanked the authorities. In the first episode of her Disney+ documentary, Swift spoke more openly about the impact of the foiled attack. “Never in my life did I think we would be dealing with a terrorist attack,” she said. “We escaped a massacre.”
