Vienna (AFP) – A 21-year-old man went on trial in Austria on Tuesday over a plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, which led to shows by the US megastar in the Alpine nation to be scrapped in 2024. Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of the plot.
Beran A., who was led into the courtroom by masked police personnel, has been in detention since his arrest in August 2024 and is facing terror offences and other charges. The Austrian is accused of having been a member of a terror organisation from May 2023 “by planning and preparing a terrorist attack on the concert of singer Taylor Swift,” prosecutors have said.
By sharing Islamic State (IS) propaganda through various messaging services and other offences, he participated and “openly aligned himself” with IS, they added. Planning the attack on the concert, he allegedly tried to get weapons and worked on making a shrapnel bomb “specific to IS attacks” and received instructions from other IS members on handling explosives, according to prosecutors.
He is also alleged to have been involved in other attack plans abroad, including in Dubai and Istanbul, though those attacks never materialised. Another 21-year-old, Arda K., is standing trial together with Beran A., according to Austrian news agency APA. The duo, together with a third man, Hasan E., imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, are accused of forming a “highly dangerous IS terror cell” planning to carry out several attacks in the name of IS, prosecutors say.
The trial of the two defendants has been scheduled to last four days. If found guilty, Beran A. faces up to 20 years in prison. Last year, a Berlin court convicted a Syrian teenager of contributing to the plot to attack the Swift concert. The 16-year-old was given an 18-month suspended sentence. The plot was thwarted with the help of US intelligence. Swift later wrote on social media that “the reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many had planned on coming to those shows.”
© 2024 AFP
