Taylor Swift performs during "The Eras Tour" at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on August 7, 2023. CHRIS PIZZELLO / CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/AP
A 21-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday, April 28, in an Austrian court over a jihadist plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert, which led to shows by the US megastar in the Alpine nation being scrapped in 2024. Three dates in Swift's record-breaking "Eras" tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of the plot.
Beran A. was led into the courtroom by masked police personnel at the start of his trial on terror offences and other charges in a court in Wiener Neustadt, outside Vienna. "He pleads guilty to all except attempted murder," his lawyer Anna Mair told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Austrian has been in detention since his arrest in August 2024.
He is accused of having been a member of a terror organisation from May 2023 "by planning and preparing a terrorist attack on the concert of singer Taylor Swift," prosecutors have said. By sharing Islamic State (IS) propaganda through various messaging services and other offences, he participated and "openly aligned himself" with IS, they added.
Planning the attack on the concert, he allegedly tried to get weapons and worked on making a shrapnel bomb "specific to IS attacks" and received instructions from other IS members on handling explosives, according to prosecutors.
