An Austrian man has pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in 2024.
On the first day of the trial in Wiener Neustadt, Austria on Tuesday, the 21-year-old Austrian national identified as Beran A admitted to plotting a jihadist attack on one of the pop star’s Eras Tour concerts in August 2024.
According to prosecutors, Beran A planned to kill fans gathering outside the Ernst Happl Stadium, but following a tip-off from the U.S., he was arrested on 7 August 2024, a day before the first concert. All three sold-out gigs were still cancelled as a safety precaution.
During the court proceedings, Beran A confirmed that he pleaded guilty to the charges linked to the planned concert attack.
According to BBC News, his attorney Anna Mair told the court, “My client has caused a great deal of fear and panic among many people, and he will have to answer for that, no question. But please try to look beyond the headlines.”
She later said outside the court that Beran A, who has been in custody since his arrest, regretted his actions.
“Of course, he deeply regrets it all,” Mair stated. “It is also due to the long period of detention that he says it was the biggest mistake of his life.”
Taylor, 36, waited until she had concluded the European leg of The Eras Tour later in August 2024 before she addressed the plot publicly.
While the cancellations were “devastating”, she said that she felt “so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives”.
In her recent Eras Tour documentary, the pop star acknowledged that “we dodged a massacre situation” and admitted she was nervous about resuming the trek in London days later.
Beran A went on trial with a 21-year-old Slovakian national, known as Arda K, and they are both accused of planning attacks in the Middle East. Beran A also admitted to being a part of the Islamic State organisation but denied other charges, including being involved in planning an attack in the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Last year, a 16-year-old Syrian national, identified as Mohamed A, was given an 18-month suspended sentence by a court in Germany over the concert attack.
