A 16-year-old boy involved in a foiled plan to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna has avoided prison after a German court handed him an 18-month suspended sentence. The teenager, identified only as Mohamed A due to privacy laws, was just 14 when he assisted the main suspect by translating bomb-making instructions from Arabic and connecting him with an Islamic State (IS) member.
The court in Berlin heard that Mohamed A had been radicalised online through IS propaganda but made a full confession during the trial. His suspended sentence means he will remain free as long as he complies with conditions set under juvenile criminal law. Prosecutors described his role as supportive but secondary compared to that of the alleged mastermind.
The planned attack forced the cancellation of Swift’s three sold-out shows at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium in August 2024, after police foiled the plot following a CIA tip-off. Austrian authorities later detained three other suspects, all teenagers at the time, while the main suspect, 20-year-old Austrian national Beran A, remains in custody. Investigators believe he had hoped to kill large numbers of concertgoers.
Further reports suggested Beran A had earlier considered staging an attack in Dubai in March 2024 as part of a coordinated IS plot involving three simultaneous strikes, but he abandoned the plan at the last minute. Authorities have described the Vienna plot as a significant terror threat that was narrowly averted thanks to international intelligence cooperation.
Swift, who described the cancellation of her Vienna dates as “devastating,” later expressed her gratitude to security agencies. “Thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives,” she told fans, praising the swift action that prevented tragedy at what would have been one of the biggest events of her European tour.
