A 16-year-old has been convicted in Germany of helping plan the foiled terrorist plot that targeted Taylor Swift’s planned Eras Tour stop in Vienna last year.
A panel of judges in Berlin’s Higher Regional Court found the teenager, identified by prosecutors only as “Mohammed A,” guilty on Tuesday (Aug. 26) of preparing a serious act of violence that endangered the state and supporting a foreign terrorist organization. The judges issued a juvenile 18-month suspended sentence, meaning the teen will serve probation and avoid prison as long as he doesn’t reoffend during that time.
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Mohammed A., a Syrian national living in Germany, was 14 years old at the time of Swift’s scheduled concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium in August 2024. The judges found that he became radicalized by Islamic State (IS) propaganda online and got in contact via social media with an Austrian teenager who was making plans to bomb one of the Eras Tour shows in Vienna.
“The defendant had, among other things, sent him a video of bomb-making instructions and put him in touch with an IS member,” says the announcement issued by Berlin court officials. “The attack plans were never carried out because the plan was uncovered by Austrian authorities in a timely manner.”
Court officials say Mohammed A. “made a comprehensive confession” during the trial, which was held behind closed doors due to confidentiality rules for juvenile defendants.
All three of Swift’s planned Eras Tour shows in Vienna were canceled after the terrorist plot was uncovered. The main Austrian plotter, a 19-year-old, was quickly arrested alongside multiple alleged accomplices.
Swift’s reps did not immediately return a request for comment on the Mohammed A. conviction. The pop superstar addressed the foiled terrorist attack in a lengthy Instagram post after the Eras Tour’s European leg wrapped last year, saying it “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,” Swift wrote. “I was heartened by the love and unity I saw in the fans who banded together.”
