The 21-year-old Austrian man who admitted to planning an attack on a Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert in Vienna in August 2024 told an Austrian court on Thursday (May 28) that he was sorry for his actions ahead of a verdict in his trial. According to Associated Press, the man who is referred to as Beran A. in official proceedings in line with Austrian privacy rules, faces serious charges in the case, including terrorist offenses and membership in a terrorist organization, which could land him up to 20 years in prison.
“I would like to say that I’m sorry,” Beran A. said in brief comments before the court adjourned to consider a verdict on Thursday.
His defense attorney said the man pleaded guilty to the charges during the trial’s opening day last month in the planned bombing that was headed off by authorities, who then canceled all three of Swift’s scheduled performances in the city on August 8, 9 and 10 out of an abundance of caution.
Prosecutors claim that Beran A. planned to target people outside Ernst Happel Stadium with knives and homemade explosives as tens of thousands of Swifties descended on the city for the anticipated trio of shows on the record-breaking tour. The venue holds 65,000 people and authorities were expected more than 200,000 to descend on Vienna over the course of the three dates.
Prosecutors also said that Beran A. allegedly networked with other members of the Islamic State group ahead of the planned attack, with prosecutors saying that the defendant discussed purchasing weapons and making bombs with the terrorist group and that he tried to illegally buy weapons in the days ahead of the performance while swearing allegiance to the militant group.
Shortly after the plot was revealed, the CIA said the suspect in the plot were aiming to create a massive casualty event they hoped would involve a “huge” number of victims before the agency discovered intelligence that helped disrupt the planning and led to three arrests in the case. During a raid of Beran A.’s home, police reportedly found chemical substances and other technical devices that he planned to use in the attack.
Beran A. is on trial alongside Arda K., along with a third man who was arrested and who remains in pretrial detention in Saudi Arabia, over allegations that they planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan in 2024 in the name of the Islamic State; only Beran A. was charged in connection with the concert plot and he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the simultaneous attack plots.
During closing arguments on Thursday at the state court in Wiener Neustadt, prosecutors called for the men’s conviction, with Beran A.’s defense lawyer telling the court that her client was “not an ideological mastermind.”
The singer’s Vienna shows were scheduled to be part of the final run on the Eras Tour‘s European leg, followed by a five-night stint at London’s Wembley Stadium (August 15-20), which went off without a hitch. The singer described the scary terror plot in a statement at the time, writing, “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows. But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives. I was heartened by the love and unity I saw in the fans who banded together. I decided that all of my energy had to go toward helping to protect the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London. My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us.”
In classic Swiftie fashion, the tens of thousands of disappointed fans rallied in the days after the cancellation by flooding the streets of Vienna for impromptu sing-alongs and spontaneous celebrations of the singer.
