Overview
- A jury in Wiener Neustadt convicted 21-year-old Beran A. and sentenced him to 15 years in prison on May 28, 2026 for planning a jihadist attack on Taylor Swift’s 2024 Eras Tour stop in Vienna.
- Investigators say U.S. intelligence from the CIA prompted Austrian police to arrest suspects and search an apartment on August 7, 2024, which led organisers to cancel all three sold-out Vienna shows.
- Prosecutors said Beran A. pledged allegiance to Islamic State, used online ISIS bomb‑making instructions to try to make TATP explosives and attempted to buy illegal weapons including a machine gun and a hand grenade.
- A co-defendant, Arda K., was found guilty on related terrorism charges and sentenced to 12 years while another suspect remains in custody in Saudi Arabia and a German juvenile received a suspended sentence in earlier proceedings.
- The case affected nearly 200,000 ticketholders, prompted large public reaction and leaves open policy questions about how intelligence sharing, event security and internet radicalization are managed going forward.