Austrian Court Sentences Man to 15 Years for Taylor Swift Concert Attack Plot

An Austrian court in Wiener Neustadt sentenced a 21-year-old man identified only as Beran A. to 15 years in prison on Thursday after convicting him of planning a jihadist attack on Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concerts scheduled for Vienna in August 2024.

The same jury found him guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and of planning coordinated attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors said he had sworn allegiance to Islamic State and attempted to acquire weapons including a machine gun and hand grenade.

Austrian authorities arrested Beran A. on August 7, 2024, one day before the first of three sold-out shows at Ernst Happel Stadium, after receiving a tip from the CIA. A search of a house in Ternitz uncovered bomb-making components, machetes, knives, counterfeit money and Islamic State propaganda.

The defendant had planned to detonate a shrapnel bomb outside the arena and use other weapons against concertgoers. All three Vienna performances were cancelled, affecting nearly 200,000 ticket holders.

Additional Charges Was tried alongside Beran A. and received a 12-year sentence for his role in the planned attacks in the Middle East and Turkey. A third suspect remains in custody in Saudi Arabia. Beran A. had pleaded guilty to the Vienna concert plot in April but denied some of the other terrorism charges.

Court-appointed psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann testified that the defendant showed no signs of mental illness. , May 28, 2026 (BBC News) Taylor Swift later said the foiled plot had filled her with "a new sense of fear" and that she felt "a tremendous amount of guilt" over the cancellations, while expressing gratitude that authorities had prevented loss of life.