UK Teenager Guilty Of Plotting Bieber Concert Attack

A 17-year-old from Wales was found guilty of planning a terrorist attack on Cardiff’s Principality Stadium the day Justin Bieber took the stage June 30.

Police reportedly raided the boy’s home in the south Wales valleys on the day of the concert and found a claw hammer, gutting knife as well as a suicide note, in which he claimed to be a “soldier of the Islamic State.”

The note continued: “I have attacked Cardiff today because your government keeps on bombing targets in Syria and Iraq. There will be more attacks in the future.”

Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP – Justin Bieber
“KIIS FM Jingle Ball,” Staples Center, Los Angeles, Calif.

However, when in the witness box at Birmingham Crown Court during the trial that lasted through November, the teenager denied plotting a terrorist attack. He confessed a “stupid interest in the gory,” but said he didn’t believe in Islam, had no Qur’an and ate ham.

He told the court that he “wanted to see how easy it was for people who had an interest in terrorism to go online and get information because the police and the government are trying to crack down on terrorism and radicalization.”

His internet search history, however, was very specific, according to police. Besides researching different methods of acting out an attack, he looked up various sites in Cardiff, among them Principality Stadium, and even entered “Justin Bieber concert” into the search field days before the gig.

The prosecution was convinced that “he intended to kill and maim as many people as possible in an attack,” adding that the evidence suggested “he was prepared to die for [an] extremist worldview and he will now rightly face the prospect of a substantial prison sentence.”

The boy will remain in custody until the sentencing hearing on Jan. 10.