A man accused of planning an Islamist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024, which was foiled at the 11th hour, has been sentenced to 15 years in jail after a month-long trial in Austria.
The Austrian, 21, identified only as Beran A due to the country’s privacy laws, was also convicted of terrorism offences. He admitted plotting an attack in Dubai that was never carried out.
After a tip-off from the CIA, he was arrested on August 7, 2024, the day before the first of three planned concerts by the US pop star in Vienna.
All three dates were then cancelled, to the dismay of fans and Swift, who wrote afterwards that it was "devastating".
On Thursday, Beran A told the Wiener Neustadt Regional Court that he was sorry before the jury took several hours to come to a verdict. He covered his face with a ring binder as he entered the courtroom to avoid being identified in pictures.
He and a second defendant, Slovak national Arda K, were also convicted of aiding and abetting attempted murder for allegedly encouraging a third man, Hasan E, during a terrorist knife attack in Makkah. Arda K was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
The pair pleaded guilty to, or were convicted of, travelling and training for terrorist purposes, terrorist association, and criminal organisation.
The presiding judge, who sat alongside two other judges and eight lay judges, said the "religiously motivated extremist motives" and the extended period over which the crimes took place were considered an aggravating factor in the crimes.
Prosecutors accused Beran A of using ISIS video instructions on how to make a shrapnel bomb, producing a small amount of the explosive triacetone peroxide and illegally trying to buy weapons including a machinegun and hand grenade for the planned attack.
The court heard the three men, all school friends, had planned to carry out one attack each in the Middle East before the Swift concerts, in March 2024: Beran A in Dubai, Arda K in Istanbul and Hasan E in Makkah.
While each travelled to his designated city, only Hasan E went through with an attack. He was arrested on suspicion of stabbing a security official at Makkah's Grand Mosque. He is still in custody in Saudi Arabia.
Closing arguments were so focused on that aspect that they did not mention the Swift concert specifically. Beran A's lawyer, Anna Mair, and Arda K's lawyer, David Jodlbauer, repeated that their clients did not provide material support to the third man and, if anything, it was the other way around.
"Beran is not a leader. He is not an ideological mastermind," Ms Mair said in her summing up.
