A court in Berlin on Tuesday convicted a 16 year-old of having supported a thwarted terror plot focused around a run of Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna last year.
The individual, publicly known as Mohamad A, was given a suspended 18-month sentence. He was 14 when he became involved with the proposed attack.
Last year, Swift was scheduled to perform at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium Aug. 8-10 as part of the international leg of her Eras Tour. However the promoter, Barracuda Music, canceled the shows on Aug. 7 after two were arrested outside of Vienna in the town of Ternitz that Tuesday, Aug. 6. A third suspect was arrested Aug. 8. The news was first reported by the BBC.
Authorities said during a news conference following the arrests that the suspects had become radicalized via the internet by the Islamic State terror group.
“Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating,” Swift wrote following the European tour’s conclusion in London. “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows. But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, Austria’s head of the Directorate of State Security and Intelligence, was quoted by the AP last year as saying that the main suspect, publicly known as Beran A, “wanted to carry out an attack in the area outside the stadium, killing as many people as possible using the knives or even using the explosive devices he had made.”
An investigation into Beran A. is ongoing.
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From Variety US