A 21-year-old man has been jailed for 15 years for planning an attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024.
The Austrian citizen, known only as Beran A in line with Austrian privacy rules, was found guilty at a state court in Wiener Neustadt, the Austria Press Agency reported.
He pleaded guilty to the charges when the trial began in April, and also admitted other terrorism-related offences, including an attack in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
The man was accused of planning to use knives or homemade explosives to kill people at one of the singer's shows in the Austrian capital in August 2024, before he was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA.
All three of Swift’s performances in the city were cancelled despite the plot being thwarted, devastating almost 200,000 “Swifties” who had travelled to Austria to attend the shows as part of the record-setting Eras Tour.
In a statement posted to Instagram two weeks after the incident, Swift wrote: “Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating.
“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.”
Speaking to the court before it adjourned to consider a verdict, Beran A said: “I would just like to say that I am sorry.”
Prosecutors said Beran A had become radicalised and had sworn allegiance to jihadist group Islamic State (IS) ahead of the planned attack.
They said he had sought to illegally buy weapons in the days ahead of the performance, including a machine gun and a hand grenade, and that he used an IS video to try to make explosives.
Authorities searched his apartment and found bomb-making materials.
Court psychiatrist Peter Hoffmann said Beran A showed no signs of mental illness, adding that there was "no psychiatric explanation" for his radicalisation.
Another 21-year-old man named as Arda K was also on trial along with Beran A, although only the latter was charged in connection to the concert plot.
They, along with a third man, Hasan E, who was arrested and remains in pre-trial detention in Saudi Arabia, allegedly planned to carry out simultaneous attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during Ramadan 2024 in the name of IS.
Beran A pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the plot for simultaneous attacks, but the court found him and Arda K guilty of contributing to attempted murder, a charge linked to Hasan E’s alleged stabbing of a security officer in Mecca in March 2024.
Arda K was given a 12-year sentence.
