The 19-year-old man suspected of being the ringleader in the foiled terror plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Austria this week had grown a long beard and looked “a little different” before his arrest, neighbours have revealed.
The suspect, identified in Austrian media as Veran A., is from Telnitz, a town about 50 miles southwest of Vienna, according to Reuters. Local residents told Reuters that the allegations against him had become more serious in recent weeks and that he had started growing a beard.
“Just recently, he’s started acting a little differently,” said his mother, Nicole Morgenbesser, 33, who lives nearby. He explained this to Reuters.
Morgenbesser said that until a few weeks ago, the suspect, who is of North Macedonian descent, would regularly greet her on the street or wave from his car, but then “he stopped saying hello.”
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A picture was flashed on a screen showing the man arrested in connection with an alleged terrorist plot to target Taylor Swift’s concert in Vienna, Austria this week, which has now been postponed. (Roland Schlager/APA/AFP via Getty Images)
The suspect was arrested by police on Wednesday morning before his home was searched, according to Reuters.
A local resident told the news agency that the suspect’s parents were not at home at the time of the incident and that local residents had evacuated their homes after being contacted by police to report a gas leak.
Authorities said chemicals and technological devices were found inside the home where the suspect lived.
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A view of the area where the main suspect lived in Telnitz, Austria, after three scheduled Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna were cancelled after the Austrian government confirmed plans to attack the venues. (Reuters/Elizabeth Mandl)
“He intended to carry out the attack in the area outside the stadium and kill as many people as possible using a knife or a homemade explosive device,” Omar Hajjawi Pirchner, director of the National Security Intelligence Agency, said Thursday.
Hajjawi-Pirchner added that the suspect “is clearly committed to the Islamic State and believes it is right to kill infidels.”
Franz Ruff, head of public security at the Austrian interior ministry, told state broadcaster ORF on Thursday that the 19-year-old suspect uploaded a pledge of allegiance to ISIS to an internet account several weeks ago.
“You hear about these kinds of cases all the time, but when it happens on your doorstep it’s a different story,” Telnitz Mayor Christian Samwald told Reuters.
Taylor Swift performed onstage at the Olympiastadion in Munich, Germany as part of her The Eras Tour on July 27th. (Thomas Niedermueller/TAS24/TAS Copyrighted via Getty Images)
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“The lesson is that it’s hard to prevent someone from being radicalized online,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
