Man sentenced to 15 years in prison over attack plot at Taylor Swift’s Vienna concert- All we know so far

Taylor Swift has made multiple headlines recently, as a twenty-one-year-old Austrian man has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison over a planned jihadist attack on her Eras Tour concert in Vienna. The man, known only as Beran A, had his full name withheld under Austrian privacy rules. As per a report shared by CNN, Beran A was picked up by authorities on August 7, 2024, the day before the first of three concerts Taylor Swift had scheduled in the Austrian capital.

All three Vienna shows were called off after his arrest. Taylor Swift later described the situation as "devastating." Fans who had traveled to the city gathered and sang together anyway, finding their own way to mark the occasion. Neither Taylor Swift nor any Swifties showed up at the trial, held in Wiener Neustadt, south of Vienna.

Beran A, who holds Austrian citizenship, pleaded guilty. The charges he faced carried a maximum sentence of twenty years. He walked into the courtroom with a ring binder held over his face to keep himself out of the photos. When he was given the floor for a final statement on Thursday, he kept it brief,

"I would just like to say that I am sorry."

Beran A tried to buy weapons and failed before settling on the Taylor Swift concert as his target:

As per a report shared by CNN, Beran A had tried to illegally get his hands on weapons before the planned attack, among them was a machine gun and a hand grenade. Both attempts however led to a failure. He also followed instructions from an Islamic State video titled "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom" and managed to produce a small quantity of the explosive TATP.

That wasn't the only attack he had been linked to. Beran A and a co-defendant, Arda K, were accused at the same trial of separately plotting solo attacks in two Middle Eastern cities earlier in 2024. Beran A told the court he went to Dubai in March 2024 looking for someone to stab.

However Beran A had a panic attack when he tried to go through with it. Arda K, for his part, traveled to Istanbul under similar circumstances and also didn't follow through.

After returning to Vienna from Dubai, Beran A resolved to go further next time. He eventually picked Taylor Swift's concert as his target.

Both men denied giving moral support to a third co-defendant. That man was arrested in Mecca on suspicion of stabbing a security official at the Grand Mosque and is still being held in Saudi Arabia.

Beran A's lawyer insisted he was not a leader, but the jury found him guilty on most counts:

As per a report shared by CNN, closing arguments at the trial were so focused on the question of moral support that the Taylor Swift concert wasn't even brought up specifically. Both defense lawyers pushed back hard on that particular charge. Anna Mair, who represented Beran A, and David Jodlbauer, who represented Arda K, both argued their clients had not provided material support to the third man.

In fact, they said, if anything it worked the other way around. Mair kept her description of her client simple.

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"Beran is not a leader. He is not an ideological mastermind," she said.

The jury didn't agree. Beran A was found guilty on thirteen of the fifteen points put to it, moral support to the third man included. Arda K was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to twelve years in prison.

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