An Austrian court has convicted a man who was charged last year in connection with a plot to commit an act of mass terror at a Taylor Swift Eras Tour show in Vienna in August 2024, the Associated Press reports. The 21-year-old defendant, identified as Beran A., has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
During Beran A.’s trial, prosecutors reportedly said he had communicated with members of the Islamic State while planning the act of violence, and that he had attempted to illegally purchase weapons in the days leading up to Swift’s shows. (Per BBC News, investigators also alleged that Beran A. plotted a terrorist attack in Dubai in 2024.) He was 19 when authorities say he planned to target concertgoers outside Vienna’s Ernst-Happel-Stadion with knives or homemade explosives. A search of his home on August 7, 2024 revealed bomb-making materials, per the AP.
Concert organizers cancelled all three of Swift’s scheduled Vienna dates after local police were alerted to the plot and arrested three people on charges related to it. One of them, a Syrian national identified as Mohamed A. who was 14 and living in Germany at the time, received an 18-month suspended sentence under juvenile criminal law in August 2025. A third suspect was released without charge after his arrest.
In a statement shared on Instagram two weeks after the called-off shows, Swift said the “reason behind 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.” Nearly 200,000 people had been expected to attend the concerts.
Per the AP, Beran A.’s defense attorney said his client admitted to the charges on the opening day of the trial in April. He was tried alongside two other men, Arda K. and Hasan E., who allegedly plotted to carry out concurrent attacks in in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on Ramadan 2024; however, only Beran A. was charged in connection with the Swift concert plot. Speaking to the court on May 28 before they adjourned to decide a verdict, he reportedly said: “I would just like to say that I am sorry.”
