Vienna (AFP) – A 21-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday in an Austrian court over a jihadist plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, which led to the cancellation of the Vienna leg of the US megastar’s “Eras” tour. Three dates in Swift’s record-breaking tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of the alleged Islamic State group plot. The accused, named as Beran A., was led into the courtroom by masked police personnel at the start of his trial on terror offences and other charges in a court in Wiener Neustadt, outside Vienna.
“He pleads guilty to all except attempted murder,” his lawyer Anna Mair told AFP. 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 Austrian, 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.
Beran A. was allegedly planning an attack at the packed Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna during Swift’s concert. He testified in court that he had not yet devised a clear plan for the attack before he was arrested in August 2024, two days before the show. The Austrian has been in detention since his arrest. 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.
In his testimony, Beran A. said he had become convinced that he “had to wage jihad,” but was “afraid to die,” according to APA. He said he failed to make a bomb but communicated in several chat groups, including with a high-ranking IS member ahead of the concert. “I was looking for encouragement. I liked getting attention,” he said.
Beran A. is accused of having been a member of a terror organisation from May 2023 “by planning and preparing a terrorist attack” on Swift’s concert, prosecutors have said. By sharing IS propaganda through various messaging services and other offences, he participated and “openly aligned himself” with IS, they added. He is also alleged to have been involved in other attack plans abroad.
In court, he testified how he travelled to Dubai and bought two knives to target security officials in March 2024. But when he looked for a police officer or soldier to stab, he suffered a “panic attack” and finally “retreated,” feeling a “sense of failure,” he said. Hasan E., the suspect jailed in Saudi Arabia, is accused of stabbing a security official in Mecca in 2024 and injuring four others before he was overpowered. Austria’s embassy is in contact with him and following ongoing judicial proceedings, according to the foreign ministry.
Beran A. and Arda K. are accused of encouraging Hasan E. ahead of the attack — an accusation Beran A. denies, his lawyer said. She stated in court that Hasan E. “manipulated” Beran A. The two became friends during their studies in a Vienna business academy.
The trial of the two defendants has been scheduled across four court dates, until May 21. Beran A., who was arrested two days before the first Swift concert was to take place, faces up to 20 years in prison on the charges. The concert 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.” 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.
© 2024 AFP
