Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner Friday announced the arrest of a third person in a terror plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner on Friday announced the arrest of a third person in a terror plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna.
Karner told reporters at a Friday press conference that the person arrested is an 18-year-old Iraqi who had been in contact with the 19-year-old main suspect in the terror plot to attack the Swift concert. Advertisement
He said the third arrested suspect was not directly involved in the terror plan, but had pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.
According to Austrian security official Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the 19-year-old was “clearly radicalized in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels.”
Haijawi-Pirchner said Thursday the main suspect in the plot had confessed he planned to kill himself and a large number of people.
Swift canceled her concerts in Vienna when the government confirmed the terror plot after the arrest of the Austrian 19-year-old.
When the main suspect was arrested Director General for Public Security Franz Ruf said in a statement that during the search of the suspect’s home “we seized chemical substances, liquids, explosives and technical equipment that could be used to produce explosives.” Advertisement
Ruf said while the suspects appear to have radicalized themselves online, investigators don’t believe ISIS operatives directed the alleged plot.
