A Berlin court has convicted a Syrian teenager for his role in a plot to attack Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna, which led to the cancellation of three dates on her record-breaking Eras Tour last summer.
The 16-year-old, identified by prosecutors as Mohammad A, was found guilty of “preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state” and “supporting a terrorist act abroad,” according to The Guardian. He received an 18-month suspended sentence.
The court revealed that Mohammad A had been “radicalised by IS (Islamic State) propaganda on the internet” and confessed to supporting another teenager in Austria in planning the attack at Taylor Swift’s concert. At the time of the foiled plot, he was just 14 years old.
The Vienna shows were cancelled last August after Austrian authorities arrested two suspects in connection with the alleged plan. Officials reported that a 19-year-old man had been preparing to carry out a mass attack in the Vienna region, with Swift’s concerts believed to have been the intended target.
“The suspect intended to kill himself and a large crowd of people,” said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of state protection and intelligence at the Austrian interior ministry, during the investigation.
