Juvenile involved in plot to attack Taylor Swift concert gets suspended sentence in Germany
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The police made multiple arrests over the suspected plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Austrian capital Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium in 2024.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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FRANKFURT – A Berlin court on Aug 26 gave a 16-year-old boy who helped prepare a foiled attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna in 2024
Charges against the Syrian adolescent, who was 14 during the plot, were brought in June. At the time of the charges, he was only identified as Mohammad A. in accordance with German privacy laws.
The Berlin court said on Aug 26 the defendant had fully confessed and that the sentence, which can be appealed, was in line with the verdict sought by prosecutors.
Initially radicalised by militant group Islamic State’s online propaganda, the defendant sent the would-be attacker a video with bomb-building instructions and put him in contact with an Islamic State member, the court said.
The police made multiple arrests over the suspected plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in the Austrian capital’s Ernst Happel Stadium, prompting the cancellation of all three of her shows there in August 2024.
Austria’s coalition government in June agreed on a plan to enable the police to monitor suspects’ secure messaging in order to thwart militant attacks, ending what security officials have said is a rare and dangerous blind spot for a European Union country. REUTERS
