(Vienna) The lawyer for the main suspect in an alleged plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna said Tuesday that authorities’ presentation of the case was exaggerated and that his client could not have carried out plans he described as “fantasies.”
The 19-year-old Austrian, whose name has not been released due to Austrian confidentiality rules, was arrested last Wednesday. He is one of three people detained.
Hours later, organizers canceled Swift’s concerts scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Ernst Happel Stadium in the Austrian capital. Her fans were devastated by the decision.
Austrian officials said the suspect wanted to carry out an attack outside the stadium, killing as many people as possible using knives or homemade explosives. According to investigators, during a search of the suspect’s home, chemical substances and technical devices were discovered.
Authorities said last week that the man had confessed to starting planning the attack in July. Defense attorney Werner Tomanek told the Austrian news agency APA that he had not yet had access to the case files, but cited a “fragmentary account” of his client’s initial interrogation to dispute their version of events, which said he had made a full confession.
“He had neither the means, nor the possibility, nor the explosives to carry out this mission,” assured Mr. Tomanek.
He added that the authorities’ accusations against the 19-year-old suspect were “exaggerated at best” and said they were “exaggerating” this in order to gain new surveillance powers.
Mr Tomanek said his client appeared to have mental problems and described him as “a lone wolf with no social contacts”. He stressed that “the alleged attack plans were pure fantasy”.
The lawyer said that during his first interrogation by investigators, his client admitted to “in principle Islamist tendencies” and conceded that he had searched for and found “contacts with such people online,” APA reported.
He went on to say that the young man had made an oath of loyalty to the Islamic State group (IS) and posted it online, but deleted it shortly after.
Asked why his client did it, Mr Tomanek replied: “Because he thought it was cool.” He said the young man wanted to imitate the positions taken by the attacker in a November 2, 2020 attack in Vienna in which four people were killed and the gunman – who had previously been convicted of trying to join ISIS in Syria – was also killed.
Taylor Swift has five concerts scheduled at Wembley Stadium in London starting Thursday.