Co-defendant Arda K. from Slovakia, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. While he was not involved in planning the attack on the Taylor Swift concert, prosecutors said he and Beran A. discussed further attacks in other cities.
The jury also found the defendants guilty of having encouraged a former friend, Hasan E., to carry ou a knife attack in Mecca in 2024, a charge both denied. Hasan E. stabbed five people in Islam’s holiest city because he believed Muslims there were not practicing their faith correctly. He has since been held in custody in Saudi Arabia.
Beran A. was arrested just ahead of Swift’s planned concert in Vienna on Aug. 9, 2024, after the CIA tipped off Austrian authorities. Following the arrest, the pop superstar canceled all three Vienna concerts that had been planned. Beran A.’s indictment followed in February 2026.
The verdict comes just days after another major terrorism case in Austria. On Wednesday, a Syrian asylum seeker was sentenced to life imprisonment for carrying out a deadly knife attack in the southern Austrian town of Villach in 2025, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring five others.
In 2020, a 20-year-old attacker killed four people and injured 22 others in central Vienna in the deadliest Islamist terror attack in Austria’s modern history.