Teenager Is Charged in 2024 Plot to Attack Taylor Swift Concert in Vienna
Prosecutors have charged a Syrian teenager living in Germany with helping to plot an attack on a Taylor Swift concert last summer, a threat that forced the music star to cancel three dates in Vienna that had been expected to draw some 150,000 fans.
Investigators in Germany accused the teenager, whom they identified only as Mohammad A. in keeping with privacy rules, of helping to interpret Arabic bomb-building instructions and of translating an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group for the main suspect in the plot.
The charges against the Syrian teenager, which include supporting a foreign terrorism organization and helping to prepare 'a serious act of violence endangering the state,' were filed last week but publicized only on Friday. His exact age has not been released.
The initial tip that there was a credible threat against Ms. Swift's concerts came from American intelligence, Austrian officials have said, and the authorities subsequently arrested a 19-year-old Austrian citizen with Macedonian roots as the main suspect. The police say that they found machetes, knives, and timers and chemicals to make explosives when they searched his parents' home in the town of Ternitz, about 40 miles south of Vienna. Officers also discovered counterfeit money and Islamic State propaganda in the house.
The main suspect is being held in jail while the investigation continues, the Vienna prosecutor's office said on Friday.
Another Austrian suspect, a 17-year-old whom the police arrested as a possible accomplice in August, has since been released without charge.
The authorities said that the Syrian teenager arrested in Germany had become radicalized online and had connected the main suspect with an Islamic State contact over social media. Because he is a minor, the Syrian teenager has not been taken into custody.
The cancellation of the concerts by Ms. Swift was a blow to the Austrian capital — her shows are often credited with providing multimillion-dollar boosts to the economies of host cities.
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