A 21-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday in an Austrian court over a jihadist plot to attack a concert by Taylor Swift, which led to the cancellation of the Vienna leg of the US megastar’s “Eras” tour.

Three dates on the record-breaking tour were cancelled in the summer of 2024 after authorities warned of an alleged Islamic State plot.

The accused, identified as Beran A., was led into the courtroom by masked police personnel at the start of his trial on terror-related offences in a court in Wiener Neustadt, outside Vienna.

“He pleads guilty to all except attempted murder,” his lawyer, Anna Mair, told AFP.

Another 21-year-old, Arda K., is standing trial alongside Beran A., according to Austrian news agency APA.

The duo, together with a third Austrian, Hasan E., who is imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, are accused of forming a “highly dangerous IS terror cell” that planned to carry out several attacks in the name of IS, prosecutors said.

Beran A. was allegedly planning an attack at the packed Ernst Happel Stadium during the concert.

He testified in court that he had not yet devised a clear plan for the attack before he was arrested in August 2024, two days before the show.

The Austrian has been in detention since his arrest.

According to prosecutors, while planning the attack, he attempted to obtain weapons and worked on constructing a shrapnel bomb “specific to IS attacks”, and received instructions from other IS members on handling explosives.

In his testimony, Beran A. said he had become convinced that he “had to wage jihad” but was “afraid to die”, according to APA.