Taylor Swift concert attack plot: 21-year-old man charged with terrorism in Austria | Taylor Swift
Austrian prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against a 21-year-old who they say planned to attack one of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna in August 2024.
Three dates on Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour have been canceled after officials were alerted to the plot.
A spokesman for the Vienna prosecutor’s office confirmed on Monday that the defendant was in custody. Austrian media identified the suspect as Beran A and said that he was arrested in August 2024.
Prosecutors said the defendant declared his allegiance to the Islamic State and shared propaganda materials and videos through various messaging services.
They accused him of “obtaining instructions from the internet for making a shrapnel bomb based on the explosive triacetone triperoxide typically used by ISIS” and producing a small amount of explosives.
Prosecutors said the defendant made “several attempts” to buy weapons illegally from outside the country and bring them to Austria.
They plan to file a criminal case against the unnamed suspect in Wiener Neustadt, a town near the Austrian capital.
He was also allegedly involved in planning other attacks abroad, including in Dubai and Istanbul, but these attacks never took place.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
“The reason for the cancellations has filled me with a new sense of dread and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned to come to these shows,” Swift wrote on social media after the shows were canceled.
The United States provided intelligence supporting the cancellation decision.
Then-White House national security spokesman John Kirby said in August 2024: “The United States remains permanently focused on our counterterrorism mission.” “We work closely with partners around the world to monitor and block threats.
“And as part of this work, the United States shared information with Austrian partners to ensure that the threat to Taylor Swift’s concerts in Vienna was eliminated.”
Last year, a Berlin court found a Syrian teenager guilty of contributing to the conspiracy. The 16-year-old boy was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence.
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
