A man has been jailed for 15 years for planning a terrorist attack at a Taylor Swift show in Vienna in 2024.
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The 21-year-old Austrian, named only as Beran A, was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA shortly before Swift brought her huge ‘Eras Tour’ to the city. Police searched his house at the time and found an almost completed bomb.
As a result, Swift cancelled all three sold-out nights at the Ernst Happel Stadium – where more than 195,000 people were expected to attend in total over the nights of August 8, 9 and 10.
Beran A admitted to planning an attack at one of the pop giant’s gigs in Vienna, and to being part of a terrorist organisation last month. However, he denied other charges including planning an attack in the Islamic holy city of Mecca.
He told the court yesterday (Thursday May 28) that he was sorry, before the jury retired for several hours to consider its verdicts (via BBC News). He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for planning a jihadist attack at Swift’s show.
Prosecutors said Beran A had been radicalised and had sworn allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). They claimed that he tried buying weapons illegally, such as machine gun and a hand grenade, but had not succeeded in doing so.
Beran A showed no signs of mental illness, according to court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann. He explained that there was “no psychiatric explanation” for his radicalisation.
Another 21-year-old man, named as Arda K from Slovakia, was also accused of being part of a cell with IS.
Previously, prosecutors alleged that Beran A started planning the foiled attack in Vienna around July 21. He was arrested on August 7, one day before the first scheduled concert.
The two men were teenagers at the time of the planned attack.
Last summer, a teenager in Germany was given an 18-month suspended sentence for helping to prepare the attempted attack at the Vienna gigs. The teenager, a Syrian national identified as “Mohammed A”, was indicted on charges of supporting a foreign terror group and helping another suspect plan a terrorist attack.
Swift spoke out about the cancellations in 2024, calling them “devastating” but adding that she was “grateful to the authorities because, thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives”.
In her 2025 documentary The End Of An Era, the singer said she “dodged a massacre situation” when authorities foiled the terrorist plot.
Meanwhile, lawyers have been going head-to-head in the Taylor Swift ‘The Life Of A Showgirl‘ trademark case, clashing over the alleged “reverse confusion” caused by the album title.
In other news, Pixar has debunked widespread rumours that the pop star has written a track for the ending credits of Toy Story 5.
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