At the Regional Court of Wiener Neustadt on Friday, an 18-year-old acquaintance of Beran A.—the 20-year-old suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on the August 9, 2024 Taylor Swift concert at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium—was sentenced to two years in prison. Luca K. was arrested two days before the concert and has been in custody ever since. That time will count toward his sentence. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Luca K. was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and a criminal group. He had shared propaganda material from the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) and praised the attacker who killed four people in Vienna on November 2, 2020. He largely confessed to the charges. The indictment did not include earlier suspicions that Luca K. was involved in a plot to target the second of three planned Taylor Swift concerts last August. According to defense attorney Michael Dohr, his client was not a close friend of Beran A., who remains under investigation in Vienna on terrorism charges. “He was just one of several people in a social circle Luca joined,” Dohr emphasized.
Dohr expressed surprise at the speed of the trial and said he would decide in the coming days whether to appeal the ruling. Given his age, Luca K. may be eligible for early release—meaning he could be freed in just a few months, taking his pretrial detention into account. The prosecution made no statement after the verdict.
“You Weren’t Just a Follower”
Throughout the questioning, Luca K. presented himself as remorseful. “Today I see all of this as a mistake. I’m glad I ended up in prison. I’ve had a daughter, and now I take life more seriously.” He said he fell in with the wrong crowd and had been “naive.” The presiding judge wasn’t fully convinced: “You were by no means just a follower, as you tried to portray yourself.”
The judge cited a message in which Luca K. scolded Beran A. for visiting an ATIB mosque, saying it allowed “Western values like police and elections.” He was also fully aware, the judge said, that the materials he shared supported IS. A key issue in the trial was a video showing Luca K. with another individual—not pledging allegiance to the IS caliph, as the prosecution initially claimed, but encouraging the other youth to do so. He also struck a pose resembling that of the Vienna attacker before his deadly rampage in the city center.
“I Want to Live Like Other Muslims Here”
Luca K. converted to Islam in 2022—before that, he had no religious affiliation—and reportedly practiced it in a highly rigid form. For instance, he instructed his then-wife, married under Islamic law, to wear gloves along with her full-body veil. Asked by a juror about his current beliefs, he replied, “I’m still a devout Muslim. But I want to live like other Muslims in Austria who are not terrorists.” He said his radicalization began online and later deepened at the Tewhid Mosque in Vienna’s Meidling district.
A representative of DERAD, an Austrian deradicalization NGO that has been working with Luca K. since late last year, testified that he has shown positive development. Unlike many others, Luca K. had not attempted to minimize or excuse his former views. However, DERAD made clear that “no guarantee”—indeed, no guarantee ever—can be made about full deradicalization. What matters now is which circles he associates with if released.
