Austrian citizen pleads guilty to Taylor Swift concert attack plot

A man accused of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and plotting to attack one of superstar singer Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna nearly two years ago pleaded guilty as his trial began on Tuesday, Austrian media reported.

Austrian outlets Kurier and Kronen Zeitung reported that he pled guilty to charges related to the plot surrounding the August 2024 concert. Three scheduled Swift shows were cancelled as a precaution.

The defendant, a 21-year-old Austrian citizen — known only as Beran A. in line with Austrian privacy rules — faced charges including terrorist offences and membership in a terrorist organization, and his defence attorney previously said he planned to plead guilty to most of the charges. He could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

He was facing trial alongside Arda K., whose full name also has not been made public. They, along with a third man, planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan in 2024 in the name of Islamic State. Beran A. and Arda K. never carried out their attacks.

Beran A.’s defence attorney, Anna Mair, on Monday told The Associated Press that her client planned to plead guilty to most of the charges but she did not specify which ones.

Apartment searched just a day before

Only Beran A. was charged in connection with the Taylor Swift plot. He allegedly planned to target onlookers gathered outside Ernst Happel Stadium — up to 30,000 each night, with another 65,000 inside the venue — with knives or homemade explosives. The suspect hoped to “kill as many people as possible,” authorities said in 2024.

Beran A. also allegedly networked with other members of Islamic State ahead of the planned attack. Prosecutors say they discussed purchasing weapons and making bombs, and that the defendant also sought to illegally buy weapons in the days ahead of the performance. In addition, he swore allegiance to the militant group.

Authorities searched his apartment on Aug. 7, 2024 — a day before Swift’s first scheduled show in the country — and found bomb-making materials.

The U.S. provided intelligence that fed into the decision to cancel the concerts.

Swift called the cancellations “devastating” in an Instagram post two weeks later.

“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,” she said.

In addition to Austrian fans, fans of the singer who had travelled from outside the country to attend a performance of her record-setting Eras Tour were left devastated. Fans subsequently truned Vienna into a citywide trading post for friendship bracelets and singalongs.

Planned attacks elsewhere alleged

The Vienna plot drew comparisons to a 2017 attack by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people. The bomb detonated at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving, becoming the deadliest extremist attack in the United Kingdom in recent years.

Prosecutors have also filed terrorism-related charges against Arda K. in the trial in connection with the plan for simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The third man in that plot, Hasan E., allegedly stabbed a security guard with a knife at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on March 11, 2024. He was arrested and remains in pretrial detention in Saudi Arabia, Austrian prosecutors said.

Beran A. and Arda K. did not carry out their plans in Turkey and the U.A.E. Beran A. returned to Vienna and then allegedly began plotting to attack a Swift concert there.