Austrian Man Pleads Guilty to Plotting Attack on Taylor Swift Concert in Vienna
A 21-year-old Austrian man has pleaded guilty in court over a jihadist plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago, which led to the cancellation of the US megastar's shows in the country. The defendant, identified as Beran A in accordance with Austrian privacy rules, admitted to charges related to the concert plot during his questioning by the presiding judge. When asked if he pleaded guilty to the charges linked to the planned attack, he responded, “Yes.”
The plan to kill onlookers massing outside the Ernst Happel stadium was thwarted at the last moment, but Austrian authorities still cancelled Swift’s three scheduled performances in August 2024. The singer’s fans, who had flown to Austria from around the world to attend a concert on her record-setting Eras Tour, were devastated but rallied to turn Vienna into a citywide hub for trading friendship bracelets and holding singalongs. Swift later expressed her devastation in an Instagram post, stating, “Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating. The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.”
Charges and Allegations
Beran A faces charges including terrorist offences and membership in a terrorist organisation. He is also accused, along with a Slovak national identified as Arda K, of planning attacks in the Middle East that were not carried out, and of providing moral support to a third man, Hasan E, who has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out a knife attack in Mecca. Prosecutors said that by sharing Islamic State propaganda through messaging services and other offences, Beran A participated and “openly aligned himself” with IS. His defence attorney, Anna Mair, stated that her client, who has been in jail since his arrest in August 2024, was contrite, saying, “Of course, he deeply regrets it all. It is also due to the long period of detention that he says it was the biggest mistake of his life.” Beran A could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
Details of the Plot
Beran A and Arda K, along with a third man who were all school friends, allegedly planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan in 2024 in the name of IS. Only Beran A was charged in connection with the Taylor Swift plot. He allegedly planned to target onlookers gathered outside the stadium—up to 30,000 each night, with another 65,000 inside the venue—using knives or homemade explosives. The suspect hoped to “kill as many people as possible,” authorities said in 2024. The US provided intelligence that contributed to the decision to cancel the concerts.
Prosecutors allege that Beran A used IS video instructions to learn how to make a shrapnel bomb, produced a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide, and illegally tried to buy weapons, including a machine gun and hand grenade, for the planned attack. Authorities searched his flat on 7 August 2024 and found bomb-making material, just one day before the concerts were scheduled to begin.
Related Attacks and Trial
Prosecutors also allege that the three men had planned to each carry out an attack in the Middle East before the Swift concerts, in March 2024: Beran A in Dubai, Arda K in Istanbul, and Hasan E in Mecca. While each travelled to his designated city, only Hasan E is believed to have launched an attack. He was arrested on suspicion of stabbing a security guard at Mecca’s Grand Mosque on 11 March 2024 and remains in custody in Saudi Arabia. Arda K pleaded guilty to travelling to Istanbul with the intention of carrying out a militant attack, as did Beran A in relation to his trip to Dubai. However, they pleaded not guilty to providing moral support to the third man, arguing that he was already determined and the driving force behind those plans.
The trial is being held in Wiener Neustadt, about an hour south of Vienna. Tuesday marked the first of four scheduled hearing days, with the last set for 21 May. It remains unclear if additional hearings will be needed. Last year, a Berlin court convicted a Syrian teenager of contributing to the plot to attack the Swift concert, handing down an 18-month suspended sentence.
The Vienna plot drew comparisons to a 2017 UK attack by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, which killed 22 people. That bomb detonated at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving, becoming the deadliest extremist attack in the UK in recent years.
