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Bethany BellIn court in Wiener Neustadt
Reuters
Beran A was led into court in Wiener Neustadt escorted by masked security officials
A 21-year-old Austrian man has gone on trial in a court south of Vienna where he is accused of planning and preparing a jihadist attack on a Taylor Swift concert in the Austrian capital in August 2024.
Named only as Beran A, he was escorted into the courtroom in Wiener Neustadt, wearing a blue shirt and handcuffs, to face charges of terrorism and other offences.
He was arrested after a tip-off from the CIA just before Swift’s opening concert in Vienna in 2024.
More than 195,000 people in total had been expected to attend.
Beran A went on trial with another 21-year-old man, named as Arda K, who is accused of being part of an Islamic State cell with him. They are accused of planning other attacks in Mecca, Istanbul and Dubai.
Monica Schipper / Getty Images
The Eras Tour tour narrowly “dodged a massacre situation” thanks to the CIA foiling the plot, Taylor Swift said
Ahead of the trial, Anna Mair, the lawyer for Beran A, said her client would plead guilty in part.
Vienna prosecutors have charged him with being a member of a terrorist organisation, and preparing and planning the attack on the Taylor Swift concert.
He is also accused of declaring allegiance to, and spreading online propaganda online for, the jihadist group Islamic State, as well as making explosives and attempting to purchase weapons illegally.
Beran A is suspected of having obtained instructions via the internet on how to make a shrapnel bomb, using the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP).
The type of shrapnel bomb was “specific to IS attacks”, the statement said.
Prosecutors accuse Beran A of having received training from other members of Islamic State on how to handle explosives and of having made several attempts to purchase various firearms and a hand grenade through illegal dealers, with the intention of importing the weapons into Austria.
Prosecutors say Beran A started planning the attack at the latest by 21 July 2024. He was arrested on 7 August, a day before the first concert.
AFP via Getty Images
Three suspects – including Beran A. – were arrested in 2024 just before Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in 2024
The two men, who were in their teens at the time of the attack, both face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.
Last year, a teenager in Germany was also given an 18-month suspended sentence, for helping to prepare the foiled attack.
Prosecutors said the Syrian national, named as Mohammed A, helped Beran A with a translation of bomb-making instructions from Arabic and put him in contact with an IS member.
The trial is expected to continue until late May.
Taylor Swift – one of the world’s biggest superstars – learned about the bomb plot in Vienna when she was on the plane to Austria, according to a documentary on the Eras Tour.
In her own words, she said the tour narrowly “dodged a massacre situation” when the CIA identified a plot to explode a bomb at the concert.
Speaking to select members of the media, including the BBC, at the New York premiere of her new six part Disney+ documentary, she said that after performing for 20 years “being afraid that something is going to happen to your fans is new”.
In a post on social media after the incident in 2024, she wrote: “Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
The 149-show Eras Tour kicked off in March 2023 and closed in December 2024.
It spanned five continents, selling more than 10.1 million tickets and becoming the first tour in history to surpass $1bn (£786m) in ticket sales.
